Re: do_posix_clock_monotonic_gettime() returns negative nsec

From: George Anzinger
Date: Fri Dec 03 2004 - 03:54:16 EST


Herbert Poetzl wrote:
On Thu, Dec 02, 2004 at 07:08:23PM -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:

Herbert Poetzl <herbert@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Hi Folks!

recent kernels (tested 2.6.10-rc2 and 2.6.10-rc2-bk15)
produce funny output in /proc/uptime like this:

# cat /proc/uptime
12.4294967218 9.05
# cat /proc/uptime
13.4294967251 10.33
# cat /proc/uptime
14.4294967295 11.73

a short investigation of the issue, ended at
do_posix_clock_monotonic_gettime() which can (and often does) return negative nsec values (within
one second), so while the actual 'time' returned
is correct, some parts of the kernel assume that
those part is within the range (0 - NSEC_PER_SEC)

len = sprintf(page,"%lu.%02lu %lu.%02lu\n",
(unsigned long) uptime.tv_sec,
(uptime.tv_nsec / (NSEC_PER_SEC / 100)),

as the function itself corrects overflows, it would
make sense to me to correct underflows too, for example with the following patch:

--- ./kernel/posix-timers.c.orig 2004-11-19 21:11:05.000000000 +0100
+++ ./kernel/posix-timers.c 2004-12-03 02:23:56.000000000 +0100
@@ -1208,7 +1208,10 @@ int do_posix_clock_monotonic_gettime(str
tp->tv_sec += wall_to_mono.tv_sec;
tp->tv_nsec += wall_to_mono.tv_nsec;

- if ((tp->tv_nsec - NSEC_PER_SEC) > 0) {
+ if (tp->tv_nsec < 0) {
+ tp->tv_nsec += NSEC_PER_SEC;
+ tp->tv_sec--;
+ } else if ((tp->tv_nsec - NSEC_PER_SEC) > 0) {
tp->tv_nsec -= NSEC_PER_SEC;
tp->tv_sec++;
}

Doesn't this imply that do_posix_clock_monotonic_gettime_parts() is
returning a negative tv_nsec?


nope, not necessarily, because after that ...

tp->tv_sec += wall_to_mono.tv_sec;
tp->tv_nsec += wall_to_mono.tv_nsec;

might add a negative value, which explains the
underflow ...

and if you look closer:

xtime.tv_sec = get_cmos_time();
wall_to_monotonic.tv_sec = -xtime.tv_sec;
xtime.tv_nsec = (INITIAL_JIFFIES % HZ) * (NSEC_PER_SEC / HZ);
wall_to_monotonic.tv_nsec = -xtime.tv_nsec;

Yep, that IS the problem. It should be normalized here, I.e.
set_normalized_timespec(wall_to_monotonic,
wall_to_monotonic.tv_sec - xtime.tv_sec,
wall_to_monotonic.tv_nsec - xtime.tv_nsec);
with the obvious delets :)

Still, this should be corrected by the first settimeofday, which most systems do on the way up, or is that just those who use NTP?


--
George Anzinger george@xxxxxxxxxx
High-res-timers: http://sourceforge.net/projects/high-res-timers/

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