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Date:      Wed, 3 Mar 2010 03:47:27 -0800
From:      Jeremy Chadwick <freebsd@jdc.parodius.com>
To:        freebsd-stable@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: stable-8 regression: time stands still
Message-ID:  <20100303114727.GA52470@icarus.home.lan>
In-Reply-To: <2e027be01003030316v719ae418o35ec64ab33aae9df@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <20100301203450.GA99170@ei.bzerk.org> <20100301211441.GB99170@ei.bzerk.org> <op.u8wrcqh18527sy@212-123-145-58.ip.telfort.nl> <20100302084347.GA4719@ei.bzerk.org> <d74eb87c1003020309g53248f4ao685d09d0f940f87c@mail.gmail.com> <20100302171227.GA26933@ei.bzerk.org> <20100302173632.GA29314@icarus.home.lan> <20100303080956.GA32493@ei.bzerk.org> <20100303110901.GB51588@icarus.home.lan> <2e027be01003030316v719ae418o35ec64ab33aae9df@mail.gmail.com>

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On Wed, Mar 03, 2010 at 11:16:51AM +0000, Tom Evans wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 11:09 AM, Jeremy Chadwick
> <freebsd@jdc.parodius.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 03, 2010 at 09:09:56AM +0100, Ruben de Groot wrote:
> >> > > I'm going to get this kern.timecounter sysctl from the system booted with a 7.x livecd
> >> > > this evening. But really, I think this is a regression. Even if this system is the only
> >> > > one known to be affected (which I sincerely doubt).
> >> >
> >> > You can force a timecounter choice by setting it in /boot/loader.conf.
> >> > I would recommend choosing ACPI-safe on your system to see if that
> >> > improves things:
> >> >
> >> > kern.timecounter.hardware=ACPI-safe
> >>
> >> Thanks, that solved my issue. Allthough for correctness I must add that this line
> >> must be put in /etc/sysctl.conf; it does nothing in loader.conf.
> >> Also the sysctl can be run in multiuser and immediately fixed the problem.
> >
> > Ah, I thought it was a loader tunable, not a sysctl tunable.  My
> > apologies!  Yes, sysctl.conf is the correct place for this.
> >
> >> One question remains: why did this suddenly become a problem in FreeBSD 8 and not
> >> in FreeBSD 7.
> >
> > That would be a question for the people who decided upon the timecounter
> > priorities in FreeBSD, since they're hard-coded (meaning: why HPET is
> > chosen above ACPI-safe).  This may have changed between RELENG_7 and
> > RELENG_8; I simply don't know.  It would be easy to verify on your
> > system of course (just boot a FreeBSD 7 LiveCD and provide the output
> > from sysctl kern.timecounter).
> >
> 
> Another possibility could be that RELENG_7 was finding ACPI-fast,
> which is rated above HPET. I'm not sure why some machines get
> ACPI-fast and some get ACPI-safe - I think ACPI-fast is tested at boot
> up, and if the measurements are not consistent, it disables ACPI-fast
> and uses ACPI-safe instead, which is then ignored when HPET is
> available.

I believe that question got answered last month:

Q: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2010-February/055056.html
A: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2010-February/055057.html
A: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2010-February/055071.html 
A: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2010-February/055158.html

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                   jdc@parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |




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