Re: [RFC PATCH net-next 1/2] net: napi: Fix interrupts permanently disabled during busy poll

Martin Karsten
2026-04-29T00:05:27Z

On 2026-04-28 19:40, Jakub Kicinski wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Apr 2026 17:51:30 +0000 Dragos Tatulea wrote:
>> Under certain conditions a queue can be left out with interrupts
>> disabled and with the napi re-scheduling timer permanently stopped.
>> This behaviour is triggered by the napi busy poll path when
>> gro-flush-timeout and defer-hard-irq are set. Here's a sequence of
>> operations:
>>
>> 1. Busy poll starts, NAPI_STATE_SCHED is set to avoid rescheduling napi
>> from the timer.
>>
>> 2. During napi poll, driver disables interrupts due to being in poll
>> mode (napi_complete_done() returns false because napi->state has
>> NAPIF_STATE_IN_BUSY_POLL set).
>
> Why does the driver have IRQs disabled in busy poll?

The problems occurs in irq deferral mode when both gro-flush-timeout and
defer-hard-irqs are nonzero and NIC interrupts are disabled.

>> 3. At the end of the busy poll (busy_poll_stop()):
>> 3.1 napi timer is scheduled and skip_schedule is set (due to config)
>> 3.2 napi->poll() is called:
>> - driver poll() processes exactly budget packets
>> and exits early => napi not scheduled.
>> (interrupts are still disabled at this point)
>> 3.3 Since napi poll processed budget packets, __busy_poll_stop()
>> is called with skip_schedule set => napi is not scheduled here
>> either.
>
> with skip_schedule it calls:
>
> clear_bit(NAPI_STATE_SCHED, &napi->state);
>
>> 4. If the napi timer from 3.1 gets to be triggered due to slow napi poll
>> or some other reason, the timer will run with no effect (due to
>> NAPI_STATE_SCHED being set).
>
> And here you claim STATE_SCHED is still set?

Labelling this with number 4. might be misleading, sorry! The concern is
that a short enough timer (compared to the duration of the driver poll)
can be triggered before the NAPI_STATE_SCHED bit is cleared at the end
of Step 3.3.

Thanks,
Martin