[PATCH] drop note_interrupt() for per-CPU for proper scaling

The "unhandled interrupts" catcher, note_interrupt(), increments a global
desc->irq_count and grossly damages scaling of very large systems, e.g.,
>192p ia64 Altix, because of this highly contented cacheline, especially
for timer interrupts.  384p is severely crippled, and 512p is unuseable.

All calls to note_interrupt() can be disabled by booting with "noirqdebug",
but this disables the useful interrupt checking for all interrupts.

I propose eliminating note_interrupt() for all per-CPU interrupts.  This
was the behavior of linux-2.6.10 and earlier, but in 2.6.11 a code
restructuring added a call to note_interrupt() for per-CPU interrupts.
Besides, note_interrupt() is a bit racy for concurrent CPU calls anyway, as
the desc->irq_count++ increment isn't atomic (which, if done, would make
scaling even worse).

Signed-off-by: John Hawkes <hawkes@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>

diff --git a/kernel/irq/handle.c b/kernel/irq/handle.c
index 06b5a6323998957a268da66eb096b94fec5154ec..436c7d93c00a9555f245da72ce9efced1bffd47b 100644 (file)
--- a/kernel/irq/handle.c
+++ b/kernel/irq/handle.c
@@ -119,8 +119,6 @@ fastcall unsigned int __do_IRQ(unsigned int irq, struct pt_regs *regs)
                 */
                desc->handler->ack(irq);
                action_ret = handle_IRQ_event(irq, regs, desc->action);
-               if (!noirqdebug)
-                       note_interrupt(irq, desc, action_ret);
                desc->handler->end(irq);
                return 1;
        }