[PATCH 2/2] arm64: validate the delta of cycle_now and cycle_last

Thu Oct 29 00:36:47 PDT 2015

On 2015/10/27 22:03, Mark Rutland wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 27, 2015 at 09:21:13PM +0800, Yang Yingliang wrote:
>> In multi-core system, if the clock is not sync perfectly, it
>> will make cycle_last that recorded by CPU-A is a little more
>> than cycle_now that read by CPU-B.
>
> If that is happening, that sounds like a hardware and/or firmware bug.
>
> The ARM ARM states the following (where a CPU is a device):
>
> 	The system counter must provide a uniform view of system time. More
> 	precisely, it must be impossible for the following sequence of events
> 	to show system time going backwards:
>
> 	1. Device A reads the time from the system counter.
>
> 	2. Device A communicates with another agent in the system, Device B.
>
> 	3. After recognizing the communication from Device A, Device B reads
> 	   the time from the system counter.
>
> Per [1] it seems like the TSC is not architected to provide this guarantee for
> x86.
>
> Are you certain that the CPUs have clocks which are not in sync?
>
>> With the negative result,
>> hrtimer_update_base() return a huge and wrong time. It leads
>> to the cpu can not finish the while loop in hrtimer_interrupt()
>> until the real nowtime which is returned from ktime_get() catch
>> up with the wrong time on clock monotonic base.
>>
>> I was able to reproudce the problem with calling clock_settime
>> and clock_adjtime repeatedly on each cpu. The params of the calls
>> is random.
>
> Could you share your reproducer?

https://github.com/kernelslacker/trinity

I use this testsuite and I make it call clock_settime and
clock_adjtime alternately with random params on each core.

>
> How long does it take to trigger the issue?

It's not certain. It would take half an hour or several hours or more 
longer.

>
>> Here is the calltrace:
>>
>> Jan 01 00:02:29 Linux kernel: INFO: rcu_sched detected stalls on CPUs/tasks:
>> Jan 01 00:02:29 Linux kernel:         0: (2 GPs behind) idle=913/1/0 softirq=59289/59291 fqs=488
>> Jan 01 00:02:29 Linux kernel:         (detected by 20, t=5252 jiffies, g=35769, c=35768, q=567)
>> Jan 01 00:02:29 Linux kernel: Task dump for CPU 0:
>> Jan 01 00:02:29 Linux kernel: swapper/0       R  running task        0   0      0 0x00000002
>> Jan 01 00:02:29 Linux kernel: Call trace:
>> Jan 01 00:02:29 Linux kernel: [<ffffffc000086c5c>] __switch_to+0x74/0x8c
>> Jan 01 00:02:29 Linux kernel: rcu_sched kthread starved for 4764 jiffies!
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: NMI watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 23s! [swapper/0:0]
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: CPU: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 4.1.6+ #184
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: task: ffffffc00091cdf0 ti: ffffffc000910000 task.ti: ffffffc000910000
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: PC is at arch_cpu_idle+0x10/0x18
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: LR is at arch_cpu_idle+0xc/0x18
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: pc : [<ffffffc00008686c>] lr : [<ffffffc000086868>] pstate: 60000145
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: sp : ffffffc000913f20
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: x29: ffffffc000913f20 x28: 000000003f4bbab0
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: x27: ffffffc00091669c x26: ffffffc00096e000
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: x25: ffffffc000804000 x24: ffffffc000913f30
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: x23: 0000000000000001 x22: ffffffc0006817f8
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: x21: ffffffc0008fdb00 x20: ffffffc000916618
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: x19: ffffffc000910000 x18: 00000000ffffffff
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: x17: 0000007f9d6f682c x16: ffffffc0001e19d0
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: x15: 0000000000000061 x14: 0000000000000072
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: x13: 0000000000000067 x12: ffffffc000682528
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: x11: 0000000000000005 x10: 00000001000faf9a
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: x9 : ffffffc000913e60 x8 : ffffffc00091d350
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: x7 : 0000000000000000 x6 : 002b24c4f00026aa
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: x5 : 0000001ffd5c6000 x4 : ffffffc000913ea0
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: x3 : ffffffdffdec3b44 x2 : ffffffdffdec3b44
>> Jan 01 00:03:32 Linux kernel: x1 : 0000000000000000 x0 : 0000000000000000
>
> In this case was CNTVOFF uniform on all CPUs?
>
> Was the kernel booted at EL2 or EL1N? Was it booted under a hypervisor?

At EL1N without a hypervisor.

>
>> CPU-A updates the cycle_last in do_settimeofday64() under lock and CPU-B
>> reads the current cycles which is slightly behind CPU-A to substract the
>> cycle_last after unlock, then we get a negative result, after masking it
>> comes to a extremely huge value and lead to "hang" in hrtimer_interrupt().
>
> It's possible that we have missing ISBs or DSBs somewhere, and we're
> encountering a re-ordering that we did not expect.
>
> It would be very helpful to be able to analyse with your reproducer. I
> have a kernel test in a local branch which I've never managed to trigger
> a failure with otehr than on systems with a horrifically skewed CNTVOFF.
>
>> And multi-core system on X86 had already met such problem and Thomas introduce
>> a fix which is commit 47001d603375 ("x86: tsc prevent time going backwards").
>> And then Thomas moved the fix code into the core code file of time in
>> commit 09ec54429c6d ("clocksource: Move cycle_last validation to core code").
>> Now the validation can be enabled by config CLOCKSOURCE_VALIDATE_LAST_CYCLE.
>> I think we can fix the problem on arm64 by selecting the config. This is no
>> side effect for systems with counters running properly.
>
> As above, per [1], I'm not sure that the same rationale applies, and
> it's somewhat worrying to mask the issue in this manner.
>
> Thanks,
> Mark.
>
> [1] https://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/23/96
>
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Yang Yingliang <yangyingliang at huawei.com>
>> Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx at linutronix.de>
>> ---
>>   arch/arm64/Kconfig | 1 +
>>   1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
>>
>> diff --git a/arch/arm64/Kconfig b/arch/arm64/Kconfig
>> index 07d1811..6a53926 100644
>> --- a/arch/arm64/Kconfig
>> +++ b/arch/arm64/Kconfig
>> @@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ config ARM64
>>   	select GENERIC_ALLOCATOR
>>   	select GENERIC_CLOCKEVENTS
>>   	select GENERIC_CLOCKEVENTS_BROADCAST
>> +	select CLOCKSOURCE_VALIDATE_LAST_CYCLE
>>   	select GENERIC_CPU_AUTOPROBE
>>   	select GENERIC_EARLY_IOREMAP
>>   	select GENERIC_IDLE_POLL_SETUP
>> --
>> 2.5.0
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
> .
>