Re: [PATCH] eliminte NMI entry/ exit code

From: George Anzinger
Date: Fri Aug 12 2005 - 20:16:12 EST


Nick Piggin wrote:
George Anzinger wrote:

The NMI entry and exit code fiddles with bits in the preempt count. If an NMI happens while some other code is doing the same, bits will be lost. This patch removes this modify code from the NMI path till we can come up with something better.


Humour me for a minute here...
NMI restores preempt_count back to its old value upon exit, right?
So what does a race case look like?

Normal code NMI
fetch preempt_count
add <----- interrupt here add and store then subtract and store, darn!
store preempt_count

Ok, no problem.

The problem is in the RT code when PREEMPT_DEBUG is on. The tests for reasonable counts fail because of the rather undefined state when NMI picks up the word. The failure is on the NMI side...


--
George Anzinger george@xxxxxxxxxx
HRT (High-res-timers): http://sourceforge.net/projects/high-res-timers/
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