Re: [Xen-devel] A question on how interrupts work

["Ronald G. Minnich" <rminnich@xxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, Keir Fraser wrote:

> This isn't true. Xen only sets the mask when it delivers an
> event-channel notification. It doesn't set the mask for page faults
> unless you specified a "virtual interrupt gate" instead of a "virtual
> trap gate" during the set_trap_table() hypercall -- that is, for
> exception vector 14 you must have set bit 2 of the flag byte of the
> trap_info_t struct.

You're right, I said it incorrectly, for some reason I switched in my 
Last-1th attempt to figure out what was up with the last one. Oops.

The plan 9 trap handler assumes that there is a hardware restore of INTF, 
which is generally true of modern CPUs. 

So what was happening was that at the end of the Plan 9 trap handler there 
was an splhi for a critical section (two lines or some such) then a 
return. There was no spllo() as they relied on hardware. I just 
realized the easy way to fix this, which is to take my own medicine: 
        x = splhi();
        stuff
        splx(x);

just need to talk to the plan 9 guys about this and fix up their trap code 
if they're willing. 


> It avoids the need to reenter Xen to do tail work. Instead the OS does
> it (with some added complexity, not on the fast path) and avoids
> reentering ring 0.

That's what I figured. I was wondering if you all knew the tradeoff of 
adding complexity at the OS trap level vs. just dropping back to ring 0. 

> Thus, in the extremely common case, an interrupt will cause ring
> transitions 3->0->1->3, instead of 3->0->1->0->3.

OK. I was assuming this was the reason. So the idea is that the tradeoff 
of NOT doing this:
        0->1->0->3
is worth the complexity of the trap return code which I see in the various 
kernels. Has this tradeoff been measured and is known to be the one we 
want? I'm more curious than anything.

Thanks Keir!

ron


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