Re: [Xen-devel] fooey. no interrupts.

[ron minnich <rminnich@xxxxxxxx>]

Further thinking about the whole interrupt thing. It seems to me that all 
the interrupts are edge-triggered, see: 
     *  2. MASK -- if this bit is clear then a 0->1 transition of PENDING
     *     will cause an asynchronous upcall to be scheduled. This bit is 
                only
     *     updated by the guest. It is read-only within Xen. If a channel
     *     becomes pending while the channel is masked then the 'edge' is 
                        lost
     *     (i.e., when the channel is unmasked, the guest must manually 
                        handle
     *     pending notifications as no upcall will be scheduled by Xen).

But what we want in some cases (timer in particular) are level interrupts. 
So this code: 

static inline void evtchn_set_pending(struct domain *d, int port)
{
    shared_info_t *s = d->shared_info;
    if ( !test_and_set_bit(port,    &s->evtchn_pending[0]) &&
         !test_bit        (port,    &s->evtchn_mask[0])    &&
         !test_and_set_bit(port>>5, &s->evtchn_pending_sel) )

        etc. 

is really testing for edges (which is fine) but in some cases we really do 
want a level. 

Sadly this does complicate life but at the same time I'd argue that
VIRQ_TIMER should be a level interrupt. I can't see any way out of this
race condition otherwise.

Does this make sense or am I totally off base? I do think the comment 
above (from hypervisor-if.h) very clearly explains the potential race 
condition. I've fallen into it in a big way, but I think it is a problem 
others may fall into as well. 

I'm going to add a trivial function evtchn_set_pending_level and call it 
out of send_guest_virq and see if it helps my problem. My guess is it 
will. 

Thanks for your patience on this one, Keir.

ron
-- 
LANL CCS-1 email flavor:
***** Correspondence   []
***** DUSA LACSI-HW    [ ]
***** DUSA LACSI-OS    [x ]
***** DUSA LACSI-CS    [ ]




-------------------------------------------------------
SF.Net email is sponsored by Shop4tech.com-Lowest price on Blank Media
100pk Sonic DVD-R 4x for only $29 -100pk Sonic DVD+R for only $33
Save 50% off Retail on Ink & Toner - Free Shipping and Free Gift.
http://www.shop4tech.com/z/Inkjet_Cartridges/9_108_r285
_______________________________________________
Xen-devel mailing list
Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xen-devel