From: "Nikita V. Youshchenko" <yoush@cs.msu.su>
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: CONFIG_PREEMPT x86 assembly question
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 17:43:11 +0300
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Hello

Whily lazy-examining kernel code, I found the following interesting point.

In arch/i386/kernel/entry.S

...
ENTRY(resume_kernel)
 cmpl $0,TI_preempt_count(%ebp) # non-zero preempt_count ?
 jnz restore_all
need_resched:
 movl TI_flags(%ebp), %ecx # need_resched set ?
 testb $_TIF_NEED_RESCHED, %cl
 jz restore_all
 testl $IF_MASK,EFLAGS(%esp)     # interrupts off (exception path) ?
 jz restore_all
 movl $PREEMPT_ACTIVE,TI_preempt_count(%ebp)
 sti
 call schedule
 movl $0,TI_preempt_count(%ebp)
 cli
 jmp need_resched
#endif
...

Why, after return from schedule(), first 0 is written to 
TI_preempt_count(%ebp), and only then interrupts are disabled?
Wht not the reverse order?

As far as I understand, the idea of the preempt_count flag is to avoid 
nested preemts. The fact that flag is reset before interrupts are 
disabled, somewhat breaks this: interrupt may happen just after flag is 
reset, causing nested interrupt while preempt_count flag is already reset. 
In a very unprobable case this could happen unlimited number of times, 
causing kernel stack overflow.

Very unprobable? But couldn't this be the cause of kernel lockups I 
suffered several times while writing DVD on a probably broken media (which 
could cause interrupt storm)?..
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