linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] time: Avoid signed overflow in timekeeping_get

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Date:	Fri, 4 Dec 2015 12:25:48 -0800
From:	John Stultz <john.stultz@...aro.org>
To:	David Gibson <david@...son.dropbear.id.au>
Cc:	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Daniel Lezcano <daniel.lezcano@...aro.org>, lviver@...hat.com,
	Paul Mackerras <paulus@...ba.org>, mpe@...erman.id.au,
	lkml <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] time: Avoid signed overflow in timekeeping_get_ns()

On Sun, Nov 29, 2015 at 5:30 PM, David Gibson
<david@...son.dropbear.id.au> wrote:
> 1e75fa8 "time: Condense timekeeper.xtime into xtime_sec" replaced a call to
> clocksource_cyc2ns() from timekeeping_get_ns() with an open-coded version
> of the same logic to avoid keeping a semi-redundant struct timespec
> in struct timekeeper.
>
> However, the commit also introduced a subtle semantic change - where
> clocksource_cyc2ns() uses purely unsigned math, the new version introduces
> a signed temporary, meaning that if (delta * tk->mult) has a 63-bit
> overflow the following shift will still give a negative result.  The
> choice of 'maxsec' in __clocksource_updatefreq_scale() means this will
> generally happen if there's a ~10 minute pause in examining the
> clocksource.
>
> This can be triggered on a powerpc KVM guest by stopping it from qemu for
> a bit over 10 minutes.  After resuming time has jumped backwards several
> minutes causing numerous problems (jiffies does not advance, msleep()s can
> be extended by minutes..).  It doesn't happen on x86 KVM guests, because
> the guest TSC is effectively frozen while the guest is stopped, which is
> not the case for the powerpc timebase.
>
> Obviously an unsigned (64 bit) overflow will only take twice as long as a
> signed, 63-bit overflow.  I don't know the time code well enough to know
> if that will still cause incorrect calculations, or if a 64-bit overflow
> is avoided elsewhere.
>
> Still, an incorrect forwards clock adjustment will cause less trouble than
> time going backwards.  So, this patch removes the potential for
> intermediate signed overflow.
>
> Suggested-by: Laurent Vivier <lvivier@...hat.com>
> Signed-off-by: David Gibson <david@...son.dropbear.id.au>

Thanks for sending this in. I've queued it for 4.5

thanks
-john
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