Re: [RFC][PATCH] new timeofday core subsystem (v.A0)

[Christoph Lameter]

On Wed, 15 Sep 2004, john stultz wrote:

> > struct time_source_t {
> > 	u8 type;
> > 	u8 shift;
> > 	u32 multiply;
> > 	void *address;
> > 	u64 mask;
> > 	int (*interrupt_at)(u64 counter_value);
> > };
>
> Could you explain the interrupt_at function further?

Generates a timer interrupt when a certain counter value has been reached.
This is a common feature of most clock chips that I am aware of.

> > 	make_time_source(1200000000, TIME_SOURCE_FUNCTION, cpu_time_filtered, 44, itm_setup);
>
> Out of curiosity, what happens in your fsyscall code in these cases
> where TIME_SOURCE_FUNCTION is used?

It backs out of the fast call track and does a regular call instead.

> > /* simulation of the old tick behavior */
> > tick(u64 when) {
> > 	/* do tick stuff */
> >
> > 	/* time base update .... */
> > 	time_source_adjust(0);
> > 	/* Schedule next timer tick */
> > 	event_new(when + NSEC_PER_SEC / HZ , tick,  when + NSEC_PER_SEC / HZ);
> > }
>
> Hmm. This is getting somewhat tangled in my mind. Who is calling tick()
> originally? How is event_run being called?

This is just some toying around with the concept. Maybe tick could be
called by the regular timer interrupt?

>
> > /* New tick would be scheduled by the ntp logic when a correction is needed.
> >  * ntp logic needs to decide when to skip a few nanosecond or slow down the clock or
> >  * make the clock run faster.
> >  * One way to do this is to accumulate a time difference to real time.
> >  * if this time difference is small and positive then skip time forward a bit.
> >  * if the time difference is negative then slow down the clock.
> >  * if the time difference is way too high then accelerate the clock
> >  */
>
> Well, this is still a bit vague.  do_adjtimex gives us 4 values we need
> to use in adjusting time. The parts-per-million (ppm - all of which are
> signed) tick adjustment value, the ppm frequency adjustment, the ppm
> offset adjustment, and the singleshot offset adjustment length (# of
> nsecs in which we apply the maximum ppm singleshot offset adjustment).
>
> How do these 4 values get translated to adjusting the time source?

I agree this is vague and I have no clue here. I hoped that you
could come up with some may to use these functions for adjtimex etc? I
would need some time to figure out how the adjusting works in order to
come up with a solution. I thought we agreed you do the NTP and time
adjustment things ;-) I have never touched that code....

> You might want to just swipe my timeofday-core patch and re-work the
> timesource.h interface to your liking (make it like time_source_t). That
> way you get all the NTP details as well as the interrupt separation for
> free.

Will have a look at it and put it together when I have some time.
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