Running a serial console, if too many kernel messages are generated within a short time causing a lot of serial I/O, the 8250 driver will generate another kernel message reporting this, which just adds to the I/O. It has a cascading effect and quickly results the system being brought to its knees by a flood of "too much work" messages. Ratelimit the error message to avoid this. Signed-off-by: Daniel Drake <dsd@xxxxxxxxxx> --- drivers/serial/8250.c | 5 +++-- 1 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/drivers/serial/8250.c b/drivers/serial/8250.c index 24110f6..d3c5855 100644 --- a/drivers/serial/8250.c +++ b/drivers/serial/8250.c @@ -1606,8 +1606,9 @@ static irqreturn_t serial8250_interrupt(int irq, void *dev_id) if (l == i->head && pass_counter++ > PASS_LIMIT) { /* If we hit this, we're dead. */ - printk(KERN_ERR "serial8250: too much work for " - "irq%d\n", irq); + if (printk_ratelimit()) + printk(KERN_ERR "serial8250: too much work for " + "irq%d\n", irq); break; } } while (l != end); -- 1.7.2.3 -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-serial" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html