linux-kernel - RE: [Xen-devel] Re: [PATCH 3/5] x86/pvclock: add vsyscall implementation

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Date:	Mon, 2 Nov 2009 07:46:06 -0800 (PST)
From:	Dan Magenheimer <dan.magenheimer@...cle.com>
To:	Avi Kivity <avi@...hat.com>
Cc:	Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@...p.org>,
	Glauber Costa <glommer@...hat.com>,
	Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy.fitzhardinge@...rix.com>,
	kurt.hackel@...cle.com, the arch/x86 maintainers <x86@...nel.org>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Glauber de Oliveira Costa <gcosta@...hat.com>,
	Xen-devel <xen-devel@...ts.xensource.com>,
	Keir Fraser <keir.fraser@...citrix.com>, zach.brown@...cle.com,
	chris.mason@...cle.com, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>
Subject: RE: [Xen-devel] Re: [PATCH 3/5] x86/pvclock: add vsyscall
	implementation

> > I don't have any public data available for this DB usage, 
> 
> Sorry, that doesn't explain anything.

Well for now just consider the DB usage as another use
of profiling.  But one can easily draw scenarios where
a monotonic timestamp is also used to guarantee transaction
ordering.

> > Search for "flight recorder".  This feature is intended to
> > be enabled all the time, but with non-vsyscall gettimeofday
> > the performance impact is unacceptably high, so they are using  
>
> For profiling work fast timestamping is of course great, but surely 
> there is no monotonicity requirement?

Yes and no.  Monotonicity is a poor substitute for a more
generic mechanism that might provide an indication that a
discontinuity has occurred (forward or backward); if an app
could get both the timestamp AND some kind of "continuity
generation counter" (basically a much more sophisticated
form of TSC_AUX that changes whenever the timestamp is
coming from a different source), perhaps all problems could be solved.

> I don't think we'll be able to provide monotonicity with vsyscall on 
> tsc-broken hosts, so we'll be limited to correcting the tsc frequency 
> after migration for good-tsc hosts.

True, though clock_gettime(CLOCK_MONOTONIC) can provide
the monotonicity where it is required.

Dan
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