Software Interrupts

The Oracle Solaris DDI/DKI supports software interrupts, also known as soft interrupts. Soft interrupts are initiated by software rather than by a hardware device. Handlers for these interrupts must also be added to and removed from the system. Soft interrupt handlers run in interrupt context and therefore can be used to do many of the tasks that belong to an interrupt handler.

Hardware interrupt handlers must perform their tasks quickly, because the handlers might have to suspend other system activity while doing these tasks. This requirement is particularly true for high-level interrupt handlers, which operate at priority levels greater than the priority level of the system scheduler. High-level interrupt handlers mask the operations of all lower-priority interrupts, including the interrupt operations of the system clock. Consequently, the interrupt handler must avoid involvement in activities that might cause it to sleep, such as acquiring a mutex.

If the handler sleeps, then the system might hang because the clock is masked and incapable of scheduling the sleeping thread. For this reason, high-level interrupt handlers normally perform a minimum amount of work at high-priority levels and delegate other tasks to software interrupts, which run below the priority level of the high-level interrupt handler. Because software interrupt handlers run below the priority level of the system scheduler, software interrupt handlers can do the work that the high-level interrupt handler was incapable of doing.