Re: [RFC PATCH v12 3/4] Linux Random Number Generator

[Arnd Bergmann]

On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 10:57 AM, Stephan MÃller <smueller@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Am Freitag, 21. Juli 2017, 05:08:47 CEST schrieb Theodore Ts'o:

>> Um, the timer is the largest number of interrupts on my system.  Compare:
>>
>>             CPU0       CPU1       CPU2       CPU3
>>  LOC:    6396552    6038865    6558646    6057102   Local timer interrupts
>>
>> with the number of disk related interrupts:
>>
>>  120:      21492     139284      40513    1705886   PCI-MSI 376832-edge
>> ahci[0000:00:17.0]
>
> They seem to be not picked up with the add_interrupt_randomness function.

On x86, the local APIC timer has some special handling in
arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S that does not go through handle_irq_event().

I would assume that this is different when you boot with the "noapictimer"
option and use the hpet clockevent instead.

On other architectures, the timer interrupt is often handled as a regular
IRQ as well.

       Arnd