netdev - Re: [RFC PATCH v2] ptp: Add vDSO-style vmclock support

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Message-ID: <7660500c-c90f-4db0-87d5-05abd1cb1dbb@opensynergy.com>
Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2024 09:50:10 +0200
From: Peter Hilber <peter.hilber@...nsynergy.com>
To: David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
 virtualization@...ts.linux.dev, linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org,
 linux-rtc@...r.kernel.org, "Ridoux, Julien" <ridouxj@...zon.com>,
 virtio-dev@...ts.linux.dev, "Luu, Ryan" <rluu@...zon.com>,
 "Chashper, David" <chashper@...zon.com>
Cc: "Christopher S. Hall" <christopher.s.hall@...el.com>,
 Jason Wang <jasowang@...hat.com>, John Stultz <jstultz@...gle.com>,
 "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@...hat.com>, netdev@...r.kernel.org,
 Richard Cochran <richardcochran@...il.com>, Stephen Boyd <sboyd@...nel.org>,
 Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>, Xuan Zhuo
 <xuanzhuo@...ux.alibaba.com>, Marc Zyngier <maz@...nel.org>,
 Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@....com>,
 Daniel Lezcano <daniel.lezcano@...aro.org>,
 Alessandro Zummo <a.zummo@...ertech.it>,
 Alexandre Belloni <alexandre.belloni@...tlin.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH v2] ptp: Add vDSO-style vmclock support

On 05.07.24 17:02, David Woodhouse wrote:
> On Fri, 2024-07-05 at 10:12 +0200, Peter Hilber wrote:
>> On 03.07.24 12:40, David Woodhouse wrote:

[...]

>>>  • Why is maxerror in picoseconds? It's the only use of that unit
> 
> Between us we now have picoseconds, nanoseconds, (seconds >> 64) and
> (seconds >> 64+n).
> 
> The power-of-two fractions seem to make a lot of sense for the counter
> period, because they mean we don't have to perform divisions.
> 
> Does it makes sense to harmonise on (seconds >> 64) for all of the
> fractional seconds? Again I don't have a strong opinion; I only want us
> to have a *reason* for any differences that exist.
> 

I don't have the expertise with fixed-point arithmetic to judge if this
would become unwieldy.

I selected ns for the virtio-rtc drafts so far because that didn't have any
impact on the precision with the Linux kernel driver message-based use
cases, but that would be different for SHM in my understanding.

So I would tend to retain ns for convenience for messages (where it doesn't
impact precision) but do not have any preference for SHM.

>>>  • Where do the clock_status values come from? Do they make sense?
>>>  • Are signed integers OK? (I think so!).
>>
>> Signed integers would need to be introduced to Virtio, which so far only
>> uses explicitly unsigned types: u8, le16 etc.
> 
> Perhaps. Although it would also be possible (if not ideal) to define
> that e.g. the tai_offset field is a 16-bit "unsigned" integer according
> to virtio, but to be interpreted as follows:
> 
> If the number is <= 32767 then the TAI offset is that value, but if the
> number is >= 32768 then the TAI offset is that value minus 65536.
> 
> Perhaps not pretty, but there isn't a *fundamental* dependency on
> virtio supporting signed integers as a primary type.
> 

Agreed.