LWN.net Logo

Does it really stabilise the system?

Does it really stabilise the system?

Posted Mar 18, 2005 23:06 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954)
In reply to: Does it really stabilise the system? by gnb
Parent article: Handling interrupts in user space

Moving stuff into user-space should eliminate some classes of crash, but it's not the answer to everything.

Indeed. But the point of this proposal is that it eliminates not only some classes of crash, but the vast majority of the crashes. If it were only a few classes, it wouldn't be worth it.

A few examples of common coding errors that would obliterate the system in a real interrupt handler, but have relatively minor impact in a user interrupt handler process: infinite loop, wild pointer to nonexistent address, store into an arbitrary address.

The SGI ULI thing, though, is a horse of a different color. This eliminates relatively few risks and adds others.


(Log in to post comments)

Copyright © 2013, Eklektix, Inc.
Comments and public postings are copyrighted by their creators.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds