Soft IRQ Threads

Introduction
This page describes Soft IRQ threads, which is a mechanism to run certain interrupt bottom halves using a kernel thread with scheduling that can be prioritized in the same scheduling class as other threads and processes.

LKML discussions
Recently (July 2004), two patches have been submitted to provide Soft IRQ threads for the Linux kernel.

Time Sys patch
See http://lkml.org/lkml/2004/7/13/125

It applies against 2.6.8-mm1, with one PPC-specific reject

Korty patch
See http://lkml.org/lkml/2004/7/13/152

Rationale
This feature is important because it allows Soft IRQ processing to be scheduled at a lower priority than realtime threads. This allows for better realtime handling by the Linux kernel.

Patch
- [Patch for CELF version XXXXXX is *here*] - [Patch for 2.4.xx is *here*] - [Patch for 2.6.xx is *here*]

Utility programs
None

How To Use
[Should fill this in]

Future Work
Here is a list of things that could be worked on for this feature: (None so far)