[PATCH] ARM: gic: use handle_fasteoi_irq for SPIs

Will Deacon will.deacon at arm.com
Wed Feb 16 11:17:55 EST 2011


Hi Rabin,

> >> Several of the platforms using the GIC also have GPIO code which uses
> >> set_irq_chained_handler().  I think you will have to modify all of
> >> these to call irq_eoi() appropriately and not the other functions.
> >> Some of these will also likely be used with other interrupt handlers
> >> than the GIC, though.
> >
> > Hmm, I had a quick look at some platforms that do this (mach-dove and
> > plat-spear) and I don't see what the problem is. They use their own irq_chip
> > structures, with their own function pointers, so this doesn't seem to relate
> > to the GIC at all. What am I missing?!
> 
> The chained handlers are usually installed on GIC interrupts.  So, when
> a chained handler does something like this
> 
> 	desc->irq_data.chip->irq_unmask(&desc->irq_data);
> 
> the desc->irq_data.chip refers to the gic_chip.  These handlers are
> written with the knowledge of what flow handler the GIC uses and what
> functions it implements, so when you change that, the chained handler
> code will not work correctly, and they'll need to be updated just like
> you've updated the cascade IRQ handler.

Ah yes, thanks for the explanation. After looking at the plat-omap code
I finally understand what's going on and I can't help but feel that the
chained GPIO handlers are terminally broken! The generic irq chip high-level
handlers (handle_{edge,level}_irq for example) at least check to see if
the irq_chip functions are non-NULL before calling them.

Ideally, the chained handler would be able to query the irq_chip to find
out what types of IRQ flow-control it supports and then assume that behaviour.
 
> In fact, I think that 846afbd1 ("GIC: Dont disable INT in ack callback")
> has broken not just GIC cascading interrupts but assumptions in several
> of these chained handlers, since several of them seem to have been
> written assuming (invalidly) that irq_ack() masks the interrupt, but
> this is no longer the case with the GIC after that commit.

Yep - it was further reaching that I originally thought. The question now is:
is it worth changing all of these handlers or are we better off hacking the gic
code so that .irq_ack calls .irq_eoi? In the case of the latter, your performance
will suck in a virtualised environment, but that's better than broken.

Cheers,

Will






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