ult based on what exactly that garbage is. Given that its not fasible for performance reasons to place exclusive locks arround each cpus poll list to provide that mutal exclusion, I think the best solution is modify the netpoll path in such a way that we continue to guarantee that the poll_list for a cpu is in fact exclusive to that cpu. To do this I've implemented the patch below. It adds an additional bit to the state field in the napi_struct. When executing napi->poll from the netpoll_path, this bit will be set. When a driver calls netif_rx_complete, if that bit is set, it will not remove the napi_struct from the poll_list. That work will be saved for the next iteration of net_rx_action. I've tested this and it seems to work well. About the biggest drawback I can see to it is the fact that it might result in an extra loop through net_rx_action in the event that the device is actually contended for (i.e. the netpoll path actually preforms all the needed work no the device, and the call to net_rx_action winds up doing nothing, except removing the napi_struct from the poll_list. However I think this is probably a small price to pay, given that the alternative is a crash. Signed-off-by: Neil Horman Signed-off-by: David S. Miller ù§ÌЗ6x