Re: printk while interrupts are disabled

Crutcher Dunnavant (crutcher@datastacks.com)
Tue, 2 Oct 2001 10:22:10 -0400


++ 02/10/01 13:37 +0200 - Norbert Roos:
> Hello!
>
> Simple question: Do printk()s get printed while interrupts are disabled
> (after cli)?

They get stuffed into a buffer to be printed later. It is possible to
overflow that buffer, and lose some of your printk messages.

from krenel/printk.c:
/*
* This is printk. It can be called from any context. We want it to
* work.
*
* We try to grab the console_sem. If we succeed, it's easy - we log
* the output and
* call the console drivers. If we fail to get the semaphore we place
* the output
* into the log buffer and return. The current holder of the
* console_sem will
* notice the new output in release_console_sem() and will send it to
* the
* consoles before releasing the semaphore.
*
* One effect of this deferred printing is that code which calls
* printk() and
* then changes console_loglevel may break. This is because
* console_loglevel
* is inspected when the actual printing occurs.
*/
...
/* This stops the holder of console_sem just where we want him
* */
spin_lock_irqsave(&logbuf_lock, flags);

-- 
Crutcher        <crutcher@datastacks.com>
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