Re: Stop using tasklets for bottom halves

[Steven Rostedt]

On Mon, 2009-09-07 at 17:14 -0700, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> On Mon, 7 Sep 2009 15:58:50 -0700
> "Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > A while ago I had read about an effort to consider removing tasklets
> > [1] or at least trying to not use them. I'm unaware of the progress in
> > this respect but since reading that article have always tried to
> > evaluate whether or not we need tasklets on wireless drivers. I have
> > also wondered whether work in irq context in other parts of the kernel
> > can be moved to process context, a curious example being timers. I'll
> > personally be trying to using only process context on bottom halves on
> > future drivers but I figured it may be a good time to ask how serious
> > was avoiding tasklets or using wrappers in the future to avoid irq
> > context is or is it advised. Do we have a general agreement this is a
> > good step forward to take? Has anyone made tests or changes on a
> > specific driver from irq context to process context and proven there
> > are no significant advantages of using irq context where you would
> > have expected it?
> > 
> > Wireless in particular should IMHO not require taskets for anything
> > time sensitive that I can think about except perhaps changing channels
> > quickly and to do that appropriately also process pending RX frames
> > prior to a switch. It remains to be seen experimentally whether or not
> > using a workqueue for RX processing would affect the time to switch
> > channels negatively but I doubt it would be significant. I hope to
> > test that with ath9k_htc.
> > 
> > What about gigabit or 10 Gigabit Ethernet drivers ? Do they face any
> > challenges which would yet need to be proven would not face issues
> > when processing bottom halves in process context?
> > 
> > [1] http://lwn.net/Articles/239633/
> > 
> >   Luis
> > --
> > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe netdev" in
> > the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> 
> Why not use NAPI, which is soft irq? Almost all 1G and 10G drivers
> use NAPI.
> 
> Process context is too slow.

Well, I'm hoping to prove the opposite. I'm working on some stuff that I
plan to present at Linux Plumbers. I've been too distracted by other
things, but hopefully I'll have some good numbers to present by then.

-- Steve


--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/