Book Image

Mastering Linux Kernel Development

By : CH Raghav Maruthi
Book Image

Mastering Linux Kernel Development

By: CH Raghav Maruthi

Overview of this book

Mastering Linux Kernel Development looks at the Linux kernel, its internal arrangement and design, and various core subsystems, helping you to gain significant understanding of this open source marvel. You will look at how the Linux kernel, which possesses a kind of collective intelligence thanks to its scores of contributors, remains so elegant owing to its great design. This book also looks at all the key kernel code, core data structures, functions, and macros, giving you a comprehensive foundation of the implementation details of the kernel’s core services and mechanisms. You will also look at the Linux kernel as well-designed software, which gives us insights into software design in general that are easily scalable yet fundamentally strong and safe. By the end of this book, you will have considerable understanding of and appreciation for the Linux kernel.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface
Index

Chapter 9. Interrupts and Deferred Work

An interrupt is an electrical signal delivered to the processor indicating occurrence of a significant event that needs immediate attention. These signals can originate either from external hardware (connected to the system) or from circuits within the processor. In this chapter we will look into the kernel's interrupt management subsystem and explore the following:

  • Programmable interrupt controllers
  • Interrupt vector table
  • IRQs
  • IRQ chip and IRQ descriptors
  • Registering and unregistering interrupt handlers
  • IRQ line-control operations
  • IRQ stacks
  • Need for deferred routines
  • Softirqs
  • Tasklets
  • Workqueues