Re: [RFC 1/2] softirq: Defer net rx/tx processing to ksoftirqd context

[Thomas Gleixner]

On Wed, 17 Jan 2018, Linus Torvalds wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 17, 2018 at 1:54 PM, Thomas Gleixner <tglx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > raise_softirq() -> raise_softirq_irqoff()
> >
> >         set_softirq_bit();
> >
> >         if (!in_interrupt())
> >                 wake_softirqd();
> >
> > So if the caller is not in hard or soft interrupt context, which includes
> > bottom half disabled regions softirqd is woken.
> 
> That does seem unnecessarily expensive, and maybe we could just do it
> with thread flag (TIF_NOTIFY_RESUME or whatever).
> 
> In fact, that was what I *thought* we did. Maybe I just remember some
> historical behavior.
> 
> Since networking seems to largely prefer softirqd anyway, maybe that
> wake_softirqd() is the right thing to do anyway.

Well, but we only do it when we are not in a bh disabled region. The places
where thread context raises the network softirqs is usually inside a bh
disabled region, so the softirq is executed on local_bh_enable(). The
thread is woken up rarely.

Thanks,

	tglx