From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S933957AbYEBKwz (ORCPT ); Fri, 2 May 2008 06:52:55 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1760922AbYEBKwm (ORCPT ); Fri, 2 May 2008 06:52:42 -0400 Received: from web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com ([209.191.69.33]:31680 "HELO web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S1759066AbYEBKwm (ORCPT ); Fri, 2 May 2008 06:52:42 -0400 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=X-YMail-OSG:Received:X-Mailer:Date:From:Reply-To:Subject:To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Message-ID; b=PfNhdsGtI3l5UFDoFnkA5FAVr5rkRfIwYpujduaKX9jX2Z1b5KBGfU8qs7VCZgXmUVH7cU02HXEFwiOkOH926VAECS5pBSM+qIYy4a5f40mXtzavdQfVNfknrtiV5msLm6tzee7HNEQpYJkXBGYbc5xQRpr25s2/kO1EyN6W2zk=; X-YMail-OSG: BoUpPoQVM1ka5dbSziVU5iZdPdo72TvAvrdIb5WZUrb1UzHKPCR54Qj7eO4CRSW_9hVq2dUW5d8oqZnC3oQ4crufgp5BeSz_zxZT6d5vvM6b2bdXROQQG2CCpg-- X-Mailer: YahooMailWebService/0.7.185 Date: Fri, 2 May 2008 03:52:40 -0700 (PDT) From: Parav Pandit Reply-To: paravpandit@yahoo.com Subject: motive for sending Ethernet packets in soft-irq context To: Linux kernel MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Message-ID: <95309.72215.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Hi, What is the motive behind sending Ethernet packets to the NIC driver by invoking hard_xmit() in the soft-irq context? What I understand is, It is not done into the process context of send() system call beacause, 1. Calling it in soft-irq context eliminates any delays incurred by the process switching, lower task priorities etc. Can't it be done by raising the process priority to highest until the NIC driver hand over the packet to the hardware? This will avoid time incurred in process to soft-irq switching time. Are there any other performance, security reasons? Regards, Parav Pandit ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ