linux-kernel - Re: [RFC v5 3/6] Add history to cross timestamp interface supporting slower devices

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.11.1601081503210.3575@nanos>
Date:	Fri, 8 Jan 2016 15:04:28 +0100 (CET)
From:	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>
To:	Christopher Hall <christopher.s.hall@...el.com>
cc:	John Stultz <john.stultz@...aro.org>,
	Richard Cochran <richardcochran@...il.com>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
	Jeff Kirsher <jeffrey.t.kirsher@...el.com>,
	"x86@...nel.org" <x86@...nel.org>,
	lkml <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	intel-wired-lan@...ts.osuosl.org, netdev@...r.kernel.org,
	"Stanton, Kevin B" <kevin.b.stanton@...el.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC v5 3/6] Add history to cross timestamp interface supporting
 slower devices

On Thu, 7 Jan 2016, Christopher Hall wrote:
> On Wed, 06 Jan 2016 11:37:23 -0800, John Stultz <john.stultz@...aro.org>
> wrote:
> > I've not done a super close reading here. But is it very likely the
> > the history_ref->cs_seq is the same as the captured seq? I thought
> > this history_ref was to allow old cross stamps to be used to improve
> > the back-calculation of the time at the given cycle value. So throwing
> > them out if they are older then the last tick seems strange.
> 
> Maybe this needs more explanation. The clocksource sequence (cs_seq) is
> incremented for each change in clocksource. I use this to detect a rare corner
> case where the clocksource is changed from (on x86 anyway) TSC and then back.
> If the history crosses one of these changes then interpolation shouldn't be
> attempted (return error). It's not really enough when using the history to
> just check that the current clocksource is equal to the one used at the start
> of the history. The clocksource must not have changed at all. To answer your
> question, it's not at all likely that this would occur.

You can flush the history when a clocksource change happens. No need to add
extra data to the core structures.

Thanks,

	tglx