Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2012 16:35:59 +0200 From: Marius Strobl <marius@alchemy.franken.de> To: Konstantin Belousov <kostikbel@gmail.com> Cc: svn-src-head@freebsd.org, svn-src-all@freebsd.org, src-committers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: svn commit: r237434 - in head/lib/libc: amd64/sys gen i386/sys include sys Message-ID: <20120623143559.GF69382@alchemy.franken.de> In-Reply-To: <20120623140556.GU2337@deviant.kiev.zoral.com.ua> References: <201206220713.q5M7DVH0063098@svn.freebsd.org> <20120622073455.GE69382@alchemy.franken.de> <20120622074817.GA2337@deviant.kiev.zoral.com.ua> <20120623131757.GB46065@alchemy.franken.de> <20120623140556.GU2337@deviant.kiev.zoral.com.ua>
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On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 05:05:56PM +0300, Konstantin Belousov wrote: > On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 03:17:57PM +0200, Marius Strobl wrote: > > On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 10:48:17AM +0300, Konstantin Belousov wrote: > > > On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 09:34:56AM +0200, Marius Strobl wrote: > > > > On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 07:13:31AM +0000, Konstantin Belousov wrote: > > > > > Author: kib > > > > > Date: Fri Jun 22 07:13:30 2012 > > > > > New Revision: 237434 > > > > > URL: http://svn.freebsd.org/changeset/base/237434 > > > > > > > > > > Log: > > > > > Use struct vdso_timehands data to implement fast gettimeofday(2) and > > > > > clock_gettime(2) functions if supported. The speedup seen in > > > > > microbenchmarks is in range 4x-7x depending on the hardware. > > > > > > > > > > Only amd64 and i386 architectures are supported. Libc uses rdtsc and > > > > > kernel data to calculate current time, if enabled by kernel. > > > > > > > > I don't know much about x86 CPUs but is my understanding correct > > > > that TSCs are not synchronized in any way across CPUs, i.e. > > > > reading it on different CPUs may result in time going backwards > > > > etc., which is okay for this application though? > > > > > > Generally speaking, tsc state among different CPU after boot is not > > > synchronized, you are right. > > > > > > Kernel has somewhat doubtful test which verifies whether the after-boot > > > state of tsc looks good. If the test fails, TSC is not enabled by > > > default as timecounter, and then usermode follows kernel policy and > > > falls back to slow syscall. So we err on the safe side. > > > I tested this on Core i7 2xxx, where the test (usually) passes. > > > > Okay, so for x86 the TSCs are not used as timecounters by either > > the kernel or userland in the SMP case if they don't appear to > > be synchronized, correct? > Correct as for now. But this is bug and not a feature. The tscs shall > be synchronized, or skew tables calculated instead of refusing to use it. > > > > > > > > > While you are there. do you have comments about sparc64 TICK counter ? > > > On SMP, the counter of BSP is used by IPI. Is it unavoidable ? > > > > The TICK counters are per-core and not synchronized by the hardware. > > We synchronize APs with the BSP on bring-up but they drift over time > > and the initial synchronization might not be perfect in the first > > place. At least in the past, drifting TICK counters caused all sorts > > of issues and strange behavior in FreeBSD when used as timecounter > > in the SMP case. If my understanding of the above is right, as is > > this still rules them out as timecounters for userland. > > Linux has some complex code (based on equivalent code origining in > > their ia64 port) for constantly synchronizing the TICK counters. > > In order to avoid that complexity and overhead, what I do in > > FreeBSD in the SMP case is to (ab)use counters (either intended > > for that purpose or bus cycle counters probably intended for > > debugging the hardware during development) available in the > > various host-to-foo bridges so it doesn't matter which CPU they > > are read by. This works just fine except for pre-PCI-Express > > based USIIIi machines, where the bus cycle counters are broken. > > That's where the TICK counter is always read from the BSP > > using an IPI in the SMP case. The latter is done as sched_bind(9) > > isn't possible with td_critnest > 1 according to information > > from jhb@ and mav@. > > So apart from introducing code to constantly synchronize the > > TICK counters, using the timecounters on the host busses also > > seems to be the only viable solution for userland. The latter > > should be doable but is long-winded as besides duplicating > > portions of the corresponding device drivers in userland, it > > probably also means to get some additional infrastructure > > like being able to memory map registers for devices on the > > nexus(4) level in place ... > > Understand. I do plan eventually to map HPET counters page into usermode > on x86. > > Also, as I noted above, some code to synchronize per-package counters > would be useful for x86, so it might be developed with multi-arch > usage in mind. That would be great. Marius
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