Peter Hurley 4f06f7c753 tty: Fix low_latency BUG
commit a9c3f68f3cd8d55f809fbdb0c138ed061ea1bd25 upstream.

The user-settable knob, low_latency, has been the source of
several BUG reports which stem from flush_to_ldisc() running
in interrupt context. Since 3.12, which added several sleeping
locks (termios_rwsem and buf->lock) to the input processing path,
the frequency of these BUG reports has increased.

Note that changes in 3.12 did not introduce this regression;
sleeping locks were first added to the input processing path
with the removal of the BKL from N_TTY in commit
a88a69c91256418c5907c2f1f8a0ec0a36f9e6cc,
'n_tty: Fix loss of echoed characters and remove bkl from n_tty'
and later in commit 38db89799bdf11625a831c5af33938dcb11908b6,
'tty: throttling race fix'. Since those changes, executing
flush_to_ldisc() in interrupt_context (ie, low_latency set), is unsafe.

However, since most devices do not validate if the low_latency
setting is appropriate for the context (process or interrupt) in
which they receive data, some reports are due to misconfiguration.
Further, serial dma devices for which dma fails, resort to
interrupt receiving as a backup without resetting low_latency.

Historically, low_latency was used to force wake-up the reading
process rather than wait for the next scheduler tick. The
effect was to trim multiple milliseconds of latency from
when the process would receive new data.

Recent tests [1] have shown that the reading process now receives
data with only 10's of microseconds latency without low_latency set.

Remove the low_latency rx steering from tty_flip_buffer_push();
however, leave the knob as an optional hint to drivers that can
tune their rx fifos and such like. Cleanup stale code comments
regarding low_latency.

[1] https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/2/20/434

"Yay.. thats an annoying historical pain in the butt gone."
	-- Alan Cox

Reported-by: Beat Bolli <bbolli@ewanet.ch>
Reported-by: Pavel Roskin <proski@gnu.org>
Acked-by: David Sterba <dsterba@suse.cz>
Cc: Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com>
Cc: Stanislaw Gruszka <sgruszka@redhat.com>
Cc: Hal Murray <murray+fedora@ip-64-139-1-69.sjc.megapath.net>
Signed-off-by: Peter Hurley <peter@hurleysoftware.com>
Signed-off-by: Alan Cox <alan@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
2014-04-22 16:49:20 -07:00
..
2013-09-26 16:25:21 -07:00
2014-04-22 16:49:20 -07:00
2013-12-16 21:31:24 -08:00
2013-08-13 15:28:01 -07:00

To understand all the Linux-USB framework, you'll use these resources:

    * This source code.  This is necessarily an evolving work, and
      includes kerneldoc that should help you get a current overview.
      ("make pdfdocs", and then look at "usb.pdf" for host side and
      "gadget.pdf" for peripheral side.)  Also, Documentation/usb has
      more information.

    * The USB 2.0 specification (from www.usb.org), with supplements
      such as those for USB OTG and the various device classes.
      The USB specification has a good overview chapter, and USB
      peripherals conform to the widely known "Chapter 9".

    * Chip specifications for USB controllers.  Examples include
      host controllers (on PCs, servers, and more); peripheral
      controllers (in devices with Linux firmware, like printers or
      cell phones); and hard-wired peripherals like Ethernet adapters.

    * Specifications for other protocols implemented by USB peripheral
      functions.  Some are vendor-specific; others are vendor-neutral
      but just standardized outside of the www.usb.org team.

Here is a list of what each subdirectory here is, and what is contained in
them.

core/		- This is for the core USB host code, including the
		  usbfs files and the hub class driver ("khubd").

host/		- This is for USB host controller drivers.  This
		  includes UHCI, OHCI, EHCI, and others that might
		  be used with more specialized "embedded" systems.

gadget/		- This is for USB peripheral controller drivers and
		  the various gadget drivers which talk to them.


Individual USB driver directories.  A new driver should be added to the
first subdirectory in the list below that it fits into.

image/		- This is for still image drivers, like scanners or
		  digital cameras.
../input/	- This is for any driver that uses the input subsystem,
		  like keyboard, mice, touchscreens, tablets, etc.
../media/	- This is for multimedia drivers, like video cameras,
		  radios, and any other drivers that talk to the v4l
		  subsystem.
../net/		- This is for network drivers.
serial/		- This is for USB to serial drivers.
storage/	- This is for USB mass-storage drivers.
class/		- This is for all USB device drivers that do not fit
		  into any of the above categories, and work for a range
		  of USB Class specified devices. 
misc/		- This is for all USB device drivers that do not fit
		  into any of the above categories.