spl (Unix)
spl (short for set priority level, after the PDP-11 assembler instruction of the same name[1] ) is the name for a collection of Unix kernel routines or macros used to change the interrupt priority level.[2] [3] This was historically needed to synchronize critical sections of kernel code that should not be interrupted.[4] Newer Unix variants which support symmetric multiprocessing now mostly use mutexes for this purpose, which is a more general solution, so multiple processors can execute kernel code at the same time.[5] [1]
On older PDP-11 versions of Unix, there were eight of these routines, ranging from spl0 to spl7, each corresponding to one PDP-11 interrupt priority level,[3] in addition to splx, which restores a previous priority level (returned by one of the other routines).[2] On BSD Unix and its derivatives, these are called splhigh, splserial, splsched, splclock, splstatclock, splvm, spltty, splsofttty, splnet, splbio, splsoftnet, splsoftclock, spllowersoftclock, spl0, and splx.[2]
As of March 2019[update] , the spl family of primitives is still heavily used in OpenBSD [6] and NetBSD,[7] which is evidenced by the plentiful calls to splnet() within the networking code;[6] [7] whereas FreeBSD and DragonFly BSD use more modern concepts; for example, in DragonFly, LWKT tokens may be used in place of spl.
See also
[edit ]References
[edit ]- ^ a b Lehey, Greg (2001), Improving the FreeBSD SMP implementation , retrieved 11 May 2018
- ^ a b c "spl(9) - OpenBSD manual pages" . Retrieved 11 May 2018.
- ^ a b Lions, John (1976). Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition, with Source Code . p. 43.
- ^ Lions, John (1976). Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition, with Source Code . p. 41.
- ^ McKusick, Marshall Kirk; et al. (authors) (2004). The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System. Addison-Wesley. p. 93.
- ^ a b "/sys/net/if.c". BSD Cross Reference. OpenBSD. 2019年03月01日. Retrieved 2019年03月05日.
s = splnet();
- ^ a b "/sys/net/if.c". BSD Cross Reference. NetBSD. 2019年03月01日. Retrieved 2019年03月05日.
s = splnet();
