Re: [PATCH 09/18] Robust TSC compensation

From: Zachary Amsden
Date: Tue Jul 13 2010 - 19:32:56 EST


On 07/13/2010 11:42 AM, David S. Ahern wrote:

On 07/13/10 15:15, Zachary Amsden wrote:

What prevents a vcpu from seeing its TSC go backwards, in case the first
write in the 5 second window is smaller than the victim vcpu's last
visible TSC value ?

Nothing, unfortunately. However, the TSC would already have to be out
of sync in order for the problem to occur. It can never happen in
normal circumstances on a stable hardware TSC except in one case;
migration. During the CPU state transfer phase of migration, however,
What about across processor sockets? Aren't CPUs brought up at different
points such that their TSCs start at different times?

It depends on the platform. But it doesn't matter. The definition we use is different start TSCs == out of sync. Some systems have synchronized TSCs, some do not.

See patch 18/18 - "Timekeeping documentation" for details.
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