Hi The cost of local_irq_save(flags)/local_irq_restore(flags) in slab functions is very high popf, cli, pushf do stress the modern processors.
Maybe we could provide special functions for caches that are known to be used only from process context ? These functions may use the local_irq_save(flags)/local_irq_restore(flags) only if needed (cache_alloc_refill() or cache_flusharray()) Something like : void *kmem_cache_alloc_noirq(kmem_cache_t *cachep, unsigned int __nocast flags) { unsigned long save_flags; void* objp; struct array_cache *ac; cache_alloc_debugcheck_before(cachep, flags); check_irq_on(); preempt_disable(); ac = ac_data(cachep); if (likely(ac->avail)) { STATS_INC_ALLOCHIT(cachep); ac->touched = 1; objp = ac_entry(ac)[--ac->avail]; } else { STATS_INC_ALLOCMISS(cachep); local_irq_save(save_flags); objp = cache_alloc_refill(cachep, flags); local_irq_restore(save_flags); } preempt_enable(); objp = cache_alloc_debugcheck_after(cachep, flags, objp, __builtin_return_address(0)); prefetchw(objp); return objp; } void kmem_cache_free_noirq(kmem_cache_t *cachep, void *objp) { struct array_cache *ac; check_irq_on(); preempt_disable(); ac = ac_data(cachep); objp = cache_free_debugcheck(cachep, objp, __builtin_return_address(0)); if (likely(ac->avail < ac->limit)) { STATS_INC_FREEHIT(cachep); } else { unsigned long flags; STATS_INC_FREEMISS(cachep); local_irq_save(flags); cache_flusharray(cachep, ac); local_irq_restore(flags); } ac_entry(ac)[ac->avail++] = objp; preempt_disable(); } Thank you Eric Dumazet - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/