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

[Eric Dumazet]

On Wed, Jan 17, 2018 at 2:00 PM, Thomas Gleixner <tglx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 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.

There is also the netif_rx_ni() stuff.

Can't remember right now why it is not using
local_bh_{diable,enable}() pair instead
of preempt_disable() ... if (local_softirq_pending()) do_softirq();