From owner-freebsd-hackers  Thu Oct 30 03:50:46 1997
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-hackers>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id DAA04359
          for hackers-outgoing; Thu, 30 Oct 1997 03:50:46 -0800 (PST)
          (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers)
Received: from word.smith.net.au (ppp5.portal.net.au [202.12.71.105])
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id DAA04306
          for <freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>; Thu, 30 Oct 1997 03:49:41 -0800 (PST)
          (envelope-from mike@word.smith.net.au)
Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost [127.0.0.1])
	by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA00594;
	Thu, 30 Oct 1997 22:11:25 +1030 (CST)
Message-Id: <199710301141.WAA00594@word.smith.net.au>
X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97
To: proff@iq.org
cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: kernel spinlocks, splbio(), MUTEX etc 
In-reply-to: Your message of "30 Oct 1997 06:16:07 -0000."
             <19971030061607.18190.qmail@iq.org> 
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 22:11:24 +1030
From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>
Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

> 
> I have a possible access contention between two peices of code,
> one hanging off a timeout() interrupt and the other called via
> the VFS sub-system. I don't want to lock the object they are 
> accessing by using splbio() as both bits of code use around
> 32k instructions.
> 
> ideas?

Can you defer one or both of the fragments?  The only real alternatives 
are to redesign your code to reduce the size of the critical region(s), 
and that's not always easy...

mike