Re: "Dead loop on virtual device" error without softirq-BKL on PREEMPT_RT
From: Bert Karwatzki <hidden>
Date: 2026-02-17 11:24:44
Also in:
linux-rt-devel, lkml
Subsystem:
networking [general], the rest · Maintainers:
"David S. Miller", Eric Dumazet, Jakub Kicinski, Paolo Abeni, Linus Torvalds
Am Dienstag, dem 17.02.2026 um 11:42 +0100 schrieb Bert Karwatzki:
I just wondered if we can completely skip the
if (READ_ONCE(txq->xmit_lock_owner) != cpu) {
[...]
} else
{
/* "Recursion" alert */
}
check, as the synchronization will we provided by HARD_TX_{LOCK,UNLOCK}.
I thought about that again, and it seems like a bad idea as (in the non-preempt) case
other threads trying to access the queue would wait for the spinlock to be freed, perhaps
one can just change the code like this:
commit 05026868843a4eea51d45811d87706f36896e828
Author: Bert Karwatzki [off-list ref]
Date: Tue Feb 17 12:08:35 2026 +0100
net: core: dev: don't warn about recursion when on same CPU
This prints a message if we're on the same CPU and the lock is
already taken, in a production use we would of course skip this
message.
Signed-off-by: Bert Karwatzki [off-list ref]
diff --git a/net/core/dev.c b/net/core/dev.c
index 5b536860138d..cac5588640b3 100644
--- a/net/core/dev.c
+++ b/net/core/dev.c@@ -4784,15 +4784,18 @@ int __dev_queue_xmit(struct sk_buff *skb, struct net_device *sb_dev) net_crit_ratelimited("Virtual device %s asks to queue packet!\n", dev->name); } else { - /* Recursion is detected! It is possible, - * unfortunately - */ -recursion_alert: - net_crit_ratelimited("Dead loop on virtual device %s, fix it urgently!\n", - dev->name); + net_crit_ratelimited("Lock taken already on %s!\n", dev->name); + goto lock_taken; } } + /* Recursion is detected! It is possible, + * unfortunately + */ +recursion_alert: + net_crit_ratelimited("Dead loop on virtual device %s, fix it urgently!\n", + dev->name); +lock_taken: rc = -ENETDOWN; rcu_read_unlock_bh();
With this I get these messages (be skipped in production code) instead of the "Dead loop on virtual device": [ 51.994435] [ T1525] Lock taken already on wlp4s0! [ 51.994546] [ T1525] Lock taken already on wlp4s0! [ 51.994650] [ T1525] Lock taken already on wlp4s0! [ 51.994746] [ T1525] Lock taken already on wlp4s0! [ 51.994845] [ T1525] Lock taken already on wlp4s0! [ 51.994948] [ T1525] Lock taken already on wlp4s0! [ 51.995037] [ T1525] Lock taken already on wlp4s0! [ 51.995128] [ T1525] Lock taken already on wlp4s0! [ 51.995220] [ T1525] Lock taken already on wlp4s0! Bert Karwatzki