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Date:      Sat, 18 Nov 2000 00:39:57 +0200
From:      Mark Murray <mark@grondar.za>
To:        John Hay <jhay@icomtek.csir.co.za>
Cc:        jhb@FreeBSD.ORG (John Baldwin), arch@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: new monotime() call for all architectures. 
Message-ID:  <200011172240.eAHMdtJ07828@gratis.grondar.za>
In-Reply-To: <200011171909.eAHJ9et99988@zibbi.icomtek.csir.co.za> ; from John Hay <jhay@icomtek.csir.co.za>  "Sat, 17 Nov 2000 21:09:40 %2B0200."
References:  <200011171909.eAHJ9et99988@zibbi.icomtek.csir.co.za> 

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> > It doesn't matter.  He just needs a psuedo-timestamp for entropy gathering
> > purposes.  It dosen't need to be entirely precise, so if different CPU's
> > counters are not 100% in sync it won't hurt anything.
> 
> Ok, I just thought the "mono" in his function name is for monotonic. If
> you are staying on one processor it will work, but if the timestamps
> have scheduling inbetween the timestamps and you land on a different
> processor it won't be monotonic anymore.

Actually, it does mean "monotonic", but I don't need strictly
monotonic. The "time" info is used to improve the quality of the
harvested entropy, but it is not specifically counted, so the
errors introduced by different CPU's counters are "free" ontropy.

M
--
Mark Murray
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