Understanding
Linux Interrupt Subsystem
Priya Dixit
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Agenda
❑ Overview of Interrupt
❑ Types of interrupt
❑ Interrupt Controllers
❑ Generic Interrupt Handling
❑ Details of Structures used
❑ Generic Interrupt Handling Process
❑ High level Driver APIs
❑ Example: Insights of interrupts with Device Drivers
❑ Interrupt view from User Space
❑ Debugging Interrupts
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Overview of Interrupts
❑ The Need:
o For communication between hardware devices and CPU
o Polling cause latency and overhead
❑ The Plan:
o Interrupt is a method used by the devices to get the CPU attention
o A signal is sent over a dedicated line from hardware devices to the processor
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Interrupts Types
❑ Hardware and Software interrupts
o Hardware interrupts- Generated by connected devices
o Software interrupts- Synchronized events, generated by any internal system of the
computer (instruction in the program)
❑ Maskable and Non Maskable interrupts
o Maskable interrupts- The interrupts which can be ignored
o Non Maskable interrupts- The interrupts which cannot be ignored
❏ And many more ...
○ Shared Interrupts
○ Spurious Interrupts,
○ GIC Specific Interrupts ( PPI, SPI, SGI)
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Trigger Level
❑ Level triggered (high or low)
o State
o As long as it needs attention, the line is asserted
❑ Edge triggered (rising or falling)
o Event
o Needs immediate action, irrespective of the activity of the source
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Interrupt Controller
❑ On chip device to manage interrupts from various different peripheral devices
❑ Upon receiving an interrupt, sends a signal to the processor
The purpose is:
❑ To multiplex interrupts
❑ For Interrupt Masking
❑ Setting priorities
❑ Setting affinity
❑ Shared Interrupt lines
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Generic Interrupt Subsystem
Structures and Generic APIs used in Interrupt Subsystem
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The Relationship between IRQ Structures
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1. Structure for irq_domain
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APIs for Domain Operations
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Example: irq_domain Operations
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Recap: irq_domain
struct irq_domain: Hardware interrupt number Translator
❑ irq_domain is tied to the node of interrupt controller in Device Tree
❑ This structure shows relation between the global interrupt number to the local one
❑ The irq_alloc_desc*() and irq_free_desc*() APIs provide allocation and deallocation of irq
numbers
❑ When an interrupt is received, irq_find_mapping() function should be used to find the Linux IRQ
number from the hwirq number
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2. Structure for irq_desc
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Recap: irq_desc
struct irq_desc : Interrupt descriptor
❑ Contains all the core stuff information
❑ Include interrupt handler function
❑ Provides 1:1 mapping to the Linux interrupt number
❑ struct irq_data is embedded here
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3. Structure for irq_data
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Recap: irq_data
Struct irq_data: per irq chip data passed down to chip functions
❑ This is embedded in irq_desc structure
❑ Contains both hardware irq number and Linux irq number
❑ Contains the pointer to the irq_chip structure
❑ Provides link between irq_chip and irq_desc
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4. Structure for irq_chip
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Recap: irq_chip
struct irq_chip : Hardware Interrupt chip descriptor
❑ This structure is used to interact with the hardware at very low level
❑ A set of methods describing how to drive the interrupt controller
❑ Directly called by core IRQ code
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Interrupt State and related APIs
❑ irqchip_state is embedded into irq_chip structure
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Interrupt Handling Flow
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Generic Interrupt Handler APIs
❑Generic_handle_irq_desc ❑handle_irq_event
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Recap: Interrupt Handling
❑ When interrupt occurs, “handle_irq” function which is stored in the IRQ descriptor (irq_desc) is
called directly or we can call the “generic_handle_irq_desc” function
❑ “handle_irq_event “ sets the IRQ state as “in progress”, acquire the IRQ description lock and
then call “handle_irq_event_percpu”
❑ Inside “handle_irq_event_percpu” function, we call “__handle_irq_event_percpu” and add
some randomness to the pool of interrupts handled by the CPU
❑ “__handle_irq_event_percpu” takes all the actions (based on irq_desc) required for the
interrupt and then clear the interrupt
❑ To handle the spurious or bad interrupts, we call “handle_bad_irq” function
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High Level Driver APIs
❑ request_irq(unsigned int irq, irq_handler_t handler, unsigned long flags, const char *name,
void *dev_id)
❑ free_irq(unsigned int irq, void *dev_id)
❑ enable_irq(unsigned int irq)
❑ disable_irq(unsigned int irq)
❑ disable_irq_nosync(unsigned int irq)
❑ in_irq()
❑ in_interrupt()
Disabling all interrupts
❑ void local_irq_save(unsigned long flags);
❑ void local_irq_disable(void);
A call to local_irq_save disables interrupt delivery on the current processor after saving the current
interrupt state into flags.
local_irq_disable shuts off local interrupt delivery without saving the state.
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Interrupt Flags
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Example of driver using generic interrupt APIs
❑request_irq ❑free_irq
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procfs Interface view
❑Enable CONFIG_PROCFS
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Interrupt View from User space
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Configuration for Debugging Interrupts
❑ Enable DEBUG_FS and mount the debugfs (mount -t debugfs none /sys/kernel/debug)
❑ Enable GENERIC_IRQ_DEBUGFS(“General Setup->irq subsystem->expose irq internals in
debugfs..." in menuconfig). This expose internal interrupt state information
❑ We can see various properties like hardware irq number, count per cpu, actions, name, type,
etc. using /sys/kernel/irq/ interface. (CONFIG_SYSFS need to be enabled)
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sysfs Interface View
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Any Questions ?
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THANK YOU
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