xref: /freebsd/share/man/man9/taskqueue.9 (revision 195ebc7e9e4b129de810833791a19dfb4349d6a9)
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31.Dd June 13, 2008
32.Dt TASKQUEUE 9
33.Os
34.Sh NAME
35.Nm taskqueue
36.Nd asynchronous task execution
37.Sh SYNOPSIS
38.In sys/param.h
39.In sys/kernel.h
40.In sys/malloc.h
41.In sys/queue.h
42.In sys/taskqueue.h
43.Bd -literal
44typedef void (*task_fn_t)(void *context, int pending);
45
46typedef void (*taskqueue_enqueue_fn)(void *context);
47
48struct task {
49	STAILQ_ENTRY(task)	ta_link;	/* link for queue */
50	u_short			ta_pending;	/* count times queued */
51	u_short			ta_priority;	/* priority of task in queue */
52	task_fn_t		ta_func;	/* task handler */
53	void			*ta_context;	/* argument for handler */
54};
55.Ed
56.Ft struct taskqueue *
57.Fn taskqueue_create "const char *name" "int mflags" "taskqueue_enqueue_fn enqueue" "void *context"
58.Ft struct taskqueue *
59.Fn taskqueue_create_fast "const char *name" "int mflags" "taskqueue_enqueue_fn enqueue" "void *context"
60.Ft void
61.Fn taskqueue_free "struct taskqueue *queue"
62.Ft struct taskqueue *
63.Fn taskqueue_find "const char *name"
64.Ft int
65.Fn taskqueue_enqueue "struct taskqueue *queue" "struct task *task"
66.Ft int
67.Fn taskqueue_enqueue_fast "struct taskqueue *queue" "struct task *task"
68.Ft void
69.Fn taskqueue_run "struct taskqueue *queue"
70.Ft void
71.Fn taskqueue_run_fast "struct taskqueue *queue"
72.Ft void
73.Fn taskqueue_drain "struct taskqueue *queue" "struct task *task"
74.Fn TASK_INIT "struct task *task" "int priority" "task_fn_t *func" "void *context"
75.Fn TASKQUEUE_DECLARE "name"
76.Fn TASKQUEUE_DEFINE "name" "taskqueue_enqueue_fn enqueue" "void *context" "init"
77.Fn TASKQUEUE_FAST_DEFINE "name" "taskqueue_enqueue_fn enqueue" "void *context" "init"
78.Fn TASKQUEUE_DEFINE_THREAD "name"
79.Fn TASKQUEUE_FAST_DEFINE_THREAD "name"
80.Sh DESCRIPTION
81These functions provide a simple interface for asynchronous execution
82of code.
83.Pp
84The function
85.Fn taskqueue_create
86is used to create new queues.
87The arguments to
88.Fn taskqueue_create
89include a name that should be unique,
90a set of
91.Xr malloc 9
92flags that specify whether the call to
93.Fn malloc
94is allowed to sleep,
95a function that is called from
96.Fn taskqueue_enqueue
97when a task is added to the queue,
98and a pointer to the memory location where the identity of the
99thread that services the queue is recorded.
100.\" XXX	The rest of the sentence gets lots in relation to the first part.
101The function called from
102.Fn taskqueue_enqueue
103must arrange for the queue to be processed
104(for instance by scheduling a software interrupt or waking a kernel
105thread).
106The memory location where the thread identity is recorded is used
107to signal the service thread(s) to terminate--when this value is set to
108zero and the thread is signaled it will terminate.
109If the queue is intended for use in fast interrupt handlers
110.Fn taskqueue_create_fast
111should be used in place of
112.Fn taskqueue_create .
113.Pp
114The function
115.Fn taskqueue_free
116should be used to remove the queue from the global list of queues
117and free the memory used by the queue.
118Any tasks that are on the queue will be executed at this time after
119which the thread servicing the queue will be signaled that it should exit.
120.Pp
121The system maintains a list of all queues which can be searched using
122.Fn taskqueue_find .
123The first queue whose name matches is returned, otherwise
124.Dv NULL .
125.Pp
126To add a task to the list of tasks queued on a taskqueue, call
127.Fn taskqueue_enqueue
128with pointers to the queue and task.
129If the task's
130.Va ta_pending
131field is non-zero,
132then it is simply incremented to reflect the number of times the task
133was enqueued.
134Otherwise,
135the task is added to the list before the first task which has a lower
136.Va ta_priority
137value or at the end of the list if no tasks have a lower priority.
138Enqueueing a task does not perform any memory allocation which makes
139it suitable for calling from an interrupt handler.
140This function will return
141.Er EPIPE
142if the queue is being freed.
143.Pp
144The function
145.Fn taskqueue_enqueue_fast
146should be used in place of
147.Fn taskqueue_enqueue
148when the enqueuing must happen from a fast interrupt handler.
149This method uses spin locks to avoid the possibility of sleeping in the fast
150interrupt context.
151.Pp
152To execute all the tasks on a queue,
153call
154.Fn taskqueue_run
155or
156.Fn taskqueue_run_fast
157depending on the flavour of the queue.
158When a task is executed,
159first it is removed from the queue,
160the value of
161.Va ta_pending
162is recorded and then the field is zeroed.
163The function
164.Va ta_func
165from the task structure is called with the value of the field
166.Va ta_context
167as its first argument
168and the value of
169.Va ta_pending
170as its second argument.
171After the function
172.Va ta_func
173returns,
174.Xr wakeup 9
175is called on the task pointer passed to
176.Fn taskqueue_enqueue .
177.Pp
178The
179.Fn taskqueue_drain
180function is used to wait for the task to finish.
181There is no guarantee that the task will not be
182enqueued after call to
183.Fn taskqueue_drain .
184.Pp
185A convenience macro,
186.Fn TASK_INIT "task" "priority" "func" "context"
187is provided to initialise a
188.Va task
189structure.
190The values of
191.Va priority ,
192.Va func ,
193and
194.Va context
195are simply copied into the task structure fields and the
196.Va ta_pending
197field is cleared.
198.Pp
199Five macros
200.Fn TASKQUEUE_DECLARE "name" ,
201.Fn TASKQUEUE_DEFINE "name" "enqueue" "context" "init" ,
202.Fn TASKQUEUE_FAST_DEFINE "name" "enqueue" "context" "init" ,
203and
204.Fn TASKQUEUE_DEFINE_THREAD "name"
205.Fn TASKQUEUE_FAST_DEFINE_THREAD "name"
206are used to declare a reference to a global queue, to define the
207implementation of the queue, and declare a queue that uses its own thread.
208The
209.Fn TASKQUEUE_DEFINE
210macro arranges to call
211.Fn taskqueue_create
212with the values of its
213.Va name ,
214.Va enqueue
215and
216.Va context
217arguments during system initialisation.
218After calling
219.Fn taskqueue_create ,
220the
221.Va init
222argument to the macro is executed as a C statement,
223allowing any further initialisation to be performed
224(such as registering an interrupt handler etc.)
225.Pp
226The
227.Fn TASKQUEUE_DEFINE_THREAD
228macro defines a new taskqueue with its own kernel thread to serve tasks.
229The variable
230.Vt struct taskqueue *taskqueue_name
231is used to enqueue tasks onto the queue.
232.Pp
233.Fn TASKQUEUE_FAST_DEFINE
234and
235.Fn TASKQUEUE_FAST_DEFINE_THREAD
236act just like
237.Fn TASKQUEUE_DEFINE
238and
239.Fn TASKQUEUE_DEFINE_THREAD
240respectively but taskqueue is created with
241.Fn taskqueue_create_fast .
242.Ss Predefined Task Queues
243The system provides four global taskqueues,
244.Va taskqueue_fast ,
245.Va taskqueue_swi ,
246.Va taskqueue_swi_giant ,
247and
248.Va taskqueue_thread .
249The
250.Va taskqueue_fast
251queue is for swi handlers dispatched from fast interrupt handlers,
252where sleep mutexes cannot be used.
253The swi taskqueues are run via a software interrupt mechanism.
254The
255.Va taskqueue_swi
256queue runs without the protection of the
257.Va Giant
258kernel lock, and the
259.Va taskqueue_swi_giant
260queue runs with the protection of the
261.Va Giant
262kernel lock.
263The thread taskqueue
264.Va taskqueue_thread
265runs in a kernel thread context, and tasks run from this thread do
266not run under the
267.Va Giant
268kernel lock.
269If the caller wants to run under
270.Va Giant ,
271he should explicitly acquire and release
272.Va Giant
273in his taskqueue handler routine.
274.Pp
275To use these queues,
276call
277.Fn taskqueue_enqueue
278with the value of the global taskqueue variable for the queue you wish to
279use
280.Va ( taskqueue_swi ,
281.Va taskqueue_swi_giant ,
282or
283.Va taskqueue_thread ) .
284Use
285.Fn taskqueue_enqueue_fast
286for the global taskqueue variable
287.Va taskqueue_fast .
288.Pp
289The software interrupt queues can be used,
290for instance, for implementing interrupt handlers which must perform a
291significant amount of processing in the handler.
292The hardware interrupt handler would perform minimal processing of the
293interrupt and then enqueue a task to finish the work.
294This reduces to a minimum
295the amount of time spent with interrupts disabled.
296.Pp
297The thread queue can be used, for instance, by interrupt level routines
298that need to call kernel functions that do things that can only be done
299from a thread context.
300(e.g., call malloc with the M_WAITOK flag.)
301.Pp
302Note that tasks queued on shared taskqueues such as
303.Va taskqueue_swi
304may be delayed an indeterminate amount of time before execution.
305If queueing delays cannot be tolerated then a private taskqueue should
306be created with a dedicated processing thread.
307.Sh SEE ALSO
308.Xr ithread 9 ,
309.Xr kthread 9 ,
310.Xr swi 9
311.Sh HISTORY
312This interface first appeared in
313.Fx 5.0 .
314There is a similar facility called tqueue in the Linux kernel.
315.Sh AUTHORS
316This manual page was written by
317.An Doug Rabson .
318