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Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 08:37:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: n4ti1us <gaspar_i@yahoo.com>
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Subject: Spin locks and software IRQs.
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Hi All,

I was looking at the linux kernel, and in the implementation of spinlocks,
one can use different functions. One of them is spin_lock_bh(). What it does
is it creates a spin lock and disables the software irqs.

In FreeBSD on the other hand, the implementation of spinlocks is done by
mtx_lock_spin (which is actually a macro that calls mtx_lock_spin_flags())
but the problem is that is disables all the irq vector (at the bottom of the
stack it executes an "cli"). Is there any way one can implement spinlocks
that only disable the bottom half (sof irq)?

Alternatively, what would be the best way to manualy disable the soft irqs?

And all this makes me think... Why has nobody implemented a "_bh" version so
far? Is this an architectural decision, or is it just me being blind?
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