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Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2015 14:19:56 -0500 (EST)
From: David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>
To: mans@...sr.com
Cc: romieu@...zoreil.com, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
netdev@...r.kernel.org, slash.tmp@...e.fr
Subject: Re: [PATCH v5] net: ethernet: add driver for Aurora VLSI NB8800
Ethernet controller
From: Måns Rullgård <mans@...sr.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2015 19:17:07 +0000
> David Miller <davem@...emloft.net> writes:
>
>> From: Måns Rullgård <mans@...sr.com>
>> Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2015 19:09:19 +0000
>>
>>> David Miller <davem@...emloft.net> writes:
>>>
>>>> From: Måns Rullgård <mans@...sr.com>
>>>> Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2015 18:25:05 +0000
>>>>
>>>>> If the TX DMA channel is idle when start_xmit is called, it can be
>>>>> started immediately. Checking the DMA status and starting it if
>>>>> idle has to be done atomically somehow.
>>>>
>>>> ->ndo_start_xmit() is guaranteed to be invoked atomically, protected
>>>> by the TX queue spinlock.
>>>
>>> Yes, but the DMA needs to be restarted from some other context if it was
>>> busy when start_xmit checked.
>>
>> Then you can probably use the TXQ lock in the interrupt handler just for
>> that.
>
> That seems a bit heavy-handed when the critical section for this is only
> a tiny part of the start_xmit function.
Then what synchornization primitive other than spin locks are you going
to use for this?
My point is that there is a spinlock the core code is _already_ taking,
unconditionally, when ->ndo_start_xmit() executes. And you can therefore
take advantage of that rather than using another lock of your own.
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