On Wed, Aug 26 2020 at 13:53, Alexander Graf wrote: > Commit 633260fa143 ("x86/irq: Convey vector as argument and not in ptregs") > changed the handover logic of the vector identifier from ~vector in orig_ax > to purely register based. Unfortunately, this field has another consumer > in the APIC code which the commit did not touch. The net result was that > IRQ balancing did not work and instead resulted in interrupt storms, slowing > down the system. The net result is an observationof the symptom but that does not explain what the underlying technical issue is. > This patch restores the original semantics that orig_ax contains the vector. > When we receive an interrupt now, the actual vector number stays stored in > the orig_ax field which then gets consumed by the APIC code. > > To ensure that nobody else trips over this in the future, the patch also adds > comments at strategic places to warn anyone who would refactor the code that > there is another consumer of the field. > > With this patch in place, IRQ balancing works as expected and performance > levels are restored to previous levels. There's a lot of 'This patch and we' in that changelog. Care to grep for 'This patch' in Documentation/process/ ? > diff --git a/arch/x86/entry/entry_32.S b/arch/x86/entry/entry_32.S > index df8c017..22e829c 100644 > --- a/arch/x86/entry/entry_32.S > +++ b/arch/x86/entry/entry_32.S > @@ -727,7 +727,7 @@ SYM_CODE_START_LOCAL(asm_\cfunc) > ENCODE_FRAME_POINTER > movl %esp, %eax > movl PT_ORIG_EAX(%esp), %edx /* get the vector from stack */ > - movl $-1, PT_ORIG_EAX(%esp) /* no syscall to restart */ > + /* keep vector on stack for APIC's irq_complete_move() */ Yes that's fixing your observed wreckage, but it introduces a worse one. user space -> interrupt push vector into orig_ax (values are in the ranges of 0-127 and -128 - 255 except for the system vectors which do not go through this code) handle() ... exit_to_user_mode_loop() arch_do_signal() /* Did we come from a system call? */ if (syscall_get_nr(current, regs) >= 0) { ---> BOOM for any vector 0-127 because syscall_get_nr() resolves to regs->orig_ax Going to be fun to debug. The below nasty hack cures it, but I hate it with a passion. I'll look deeper for a sane variant. Thanks, tglx --- --- a/arch/x86/kernel/irq.c +++ b/arch/x86/kernel/irq.c @@ -246,7 +246,9 @@ DEFINE_IDTENTRY_IRQ(common_interrupt) desc = __this_cpu_read(vector_irq[vector]); if (likely(!IS_ERR_OR_NULL(desc))) { + regs->orig_ax = (unsigned long)vector; handle_irq(desc, regs); + regs->orig_ax = -1; } else { ack_APIC_irq();