genode/repos/base-hw/include
Martin Stein 71d30297ff hw: clean up scheduling-readiness syscalls
This cleans up the syscalls that are mainly used to control the
scheduling readiness of a thread. The different use cases and
requirements were somehow mixed together in the previous interface. The
new syscall set is:

1) pause_thread and resume_thread

They don't affect the state of the thread (IPC, signalling, etc.) but
merely decide wether the thread is allowed for scheduling or not, the
so-called pause state. The pause state is orthogonal to the thread state
and masks it when it comes to scheduling. In contrast to the stopped
state, which is described in "stop_thread and restart_thread", the
thread state and the UTCB content of a thread may change while in the
paused state. However, the register state of a thread doesn't change
while paused. The "pause" and "resume" syscalls are both core-restricted
and may target any thread. They are used as back end for the CPU session
calls "pause" and "resume". The "pause/resume" feature is made for
applications like the GDB monitor that transparently want to stop and
continue the execution of a thread no matter what state the thread is
in.

2) stop_thread and restart_thread

The stop syscall can only be used on a thread in the non-blocking
("active") thread state. The thread then switches to the "stopped"
thread state in wich it explicitely waits for a restart. The restart
syscall can only be used on a thread in the "stopped" or the "active"
thread state. The thread then switches back to the "active" thread state
and the syscall returns whether the thread was stopped. Both syscalls
are not core-restricted. "Stop" always targets the calling thread while
"restart" may target any thread in the same PD as the caller. Thread
state and UTCB content of a thread don't change while in the stopped
state. The "stop/restart" feature is used when an active thread wants to
wait for an event that is not known to the kernel. Actually the syscalls
are used when waiting for locks and on thread exit.

3) cancel_thread_blocking

Does cleanly cancel a cancelable blocking thread state (IPC, signalling,
stopped). The thread whose blocking was cancelled goes back to the
"active" thread state. It may receive a syscall return value that
reflects the cancellation. This syscall doesn't affect the pause state
of the thread which means that it may still not get scheduled. The
syscall is core-restricted and may target any thread.

4) yield_thread

Does its best that a thread is scheduled as few as possible in the
current scheduling super-period without touching the thread or pause
state. In the next superperiod, however, the thread is scheduled
"normal" again. The syscall is not core-restricted and always targets
the caller.

Fixes #2104
2016-12-14 11:22:27 +01:00
..
kernel hw: clean up scheduling-readiness syscalls 2016-12-14 11:22:27 +01:00
spec base-hw: make Muen sinfo API publicly available 2016-06-22 12:19:21 +02:00
vm_session Documentation changes on account of the book 2016-05-26 15:54:16 +02:00