As Dave Chinner points out, we don't have a proper documentation for the ktime_get() family of interfaces, making it rather unclear which of the over 30 (!) interfaces one should actually use in a driver or elsewhere in the kernel.

I wrote up an explanation from how I personally see the interfaces, documenting what each of the functions do and hopefully making it a bit clearer which should be used where.

This is the first time I tried writing .rst format documentation, so in addition to any mistakes in the content, I probably also introduce nonstandard formatting ;-)

I first tried to add an extra section to Documentation/timers/timekeeping.txt, but this is currently not included in the generated API, and it seems useful to have the API docs as part of what gets generated in https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/core-api/index.html#core-utilities instead, so I started a new file there.

I also considered adding the documentation inline in the include/linux/timekeeping.h header, but couldn't figure out how to do that in a way that would result both in helpful inline comments as well as readable html output, so I settled for the latter, with a small note pointing to it from the header.

Cc: Dave Chinner david@fromorbit.com Cc: John Stultz john.stultz@linaro.org Cc: Thomas Gleixner tglx@linutronix.de Cc: Stephen Boyd sboyd@kernel.org Cc: Linus Walleij linus.walleij@linaro.org Signed-off-by: Arnd Bergmann arnd@arndb.de --- Documentation/core-api/index.rst | 1 + Documentation/core-api/timekeeping.rst | 185 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ include/linux/timekeeping.h | 15 +++ 3 files changed, 201 insertions(+) create mode 100644 Documentation/core-api/timekeeping.rst

diff --git a/Documentation/core-api/index.rst b/Documentation/core-api/index.rst index f5a66b72f984..989c97cc232a 100644 --- a/Documentation/core-api/index.rst +++ b/Documentation/core-api/index.rst @@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ Core utilities printk-formats circular-buffers gfp_mask-from-fs-io + timekeeping

Interfaces for kernel debugging =============================== diff --git a/Documentation/core-api/timekeeping.rst b/Documentation/core-api/timekeeping.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..97dafa69dddf --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/core-api/timekeeping.rst @@ -0,0 +1,185 @@ +ktime access +============ + +Device drivers can read the current time using ktime_get() and the many +related functions declared in linux/timekeeping.h. As a rule of thumb, +using an accessor with a shorter name is preferred over one with a longer +name if both are equally fit for a particular use case. + +Basic ktime_t based interfaces +------------------------------ + +The recommended simplest form returns an opaque ktime_t, with variants +that return time for different clock references: + + +.. c:function:: ktime_t ktime_get( void ) + + CLOCK_MONOTONIC + + Useful for reliable timestamps and measuring short time intervals + accurately. Starts at system boot time but stops during suspend. + +.. c:function:: ktime_t ktime_get_boottime( void ) + + CLOCK_BOOTTIME + + Like ktime_get(), but does not stop when suspended. This can be + used e.g. for key expiration times that need to be synchronized + with other machines across a suspend operation. + +.. c:function:: ktime_t ktime_get_real( void ) + + CLOCK_REALTIME + + Returns the time in relative to the UNIX epoch starting in 1970 + using the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), same as gettimeofday() + user space. This is used for all timestamps that need to + persist across a reboot, like inode times, but should be avoided + for internal uses, since it can jump backwards due to a leap + second update, NTP adjustment settimeofday() operation from user + space. + +.. c:function:: ktime_t ktime_get_clocktai( void ) + + CLOCK_TAI + + Like ktime_get_real(), but uses the International Atomic Time (TAI) + reference instead of UTC to avoid jumping on leap second updates. + This is rarely useful in the kernel. + +.. c:function:: ktime_t ktime_get_raw( void ) + + CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW + + Like ktime_get(), but runs at the same rate as the hardware + clocksource without (NTP) adjustments for clock drift. This is + also rarely needed in the kernel. + +nanosecond, timespec64, and second output +------------------------------------- + +For all of the above, there are variants that return the time in a +different format depending on what is required by the user: + +.. c:function:: u64 ktime_get_ns( void ) + u64 ktime_get_boottime_ns( void ) + u64 ktime_get_real_ns( void ) + u64 ktime_get_tai_ns( void ) + u64 ktime_get_raw_ns( void ) + + Same as the plain ktime_get functions, but returning a u64 number + of nanoseconds in the respective time reference, which may be + more convenient for some callers. + +.. c:function:: void ktime_get_ts64( struct timespec64 * ) + void ktime_get_boottime_ts64( struct timespec64 * ) + void ktime_get_real_ts64( struct timespec64 * ) + void ktime_get_clocktai_ts64( struct timespec64 * ) + void ktime_get_raw_ts64( struct timespec64 * ) + + Same above, but returns the time in a 'struct timespec64', split + into seconds and nanoseconds. This can avoid an extra division + when printing the time, or when passing it into an external + interface that expects a 'timespec' or 'timeval' structure. + +.. c:function:: time64_t ktime_get_seconds( void ) + time64_t ktime_get_boottime_seconds( void ) + time64_t ktime_get_real_seconds( void ) + time64_t ktime_get_clocktai_seconds( void ) + time64_t ktime_get_raw_seconds( void ) + + Return a coarse-grained version of the time as a scalar + time64_t. This avoids accessing the clock hardware and rounds + down the seconds to the full seconds of the last timer tick + using the respective reference. + +Coarse and fast_ns access +------------------------- + +Some additional variants exist for more specialized cases: + +.. c:function:: ktime_t ktime_get_coarse_boottime( void ) + ktime_t ktime_get_coarse_real( void ) + ktime_t ktime_get_coarse_clocktai( void ) + ktime_t ktime_get_coarse_raw( void ) + +.. c:function:: void ktime_get_coarse_ts64( struct timespec64 * ) + void ktime_get_coarse_boottime_ts64( struct timespec64 * ) + void ktime_get_coarse_real_ts64( struct timespec64 * ) + void ktime_get_coarse_clocktai_ts64( struct timespec64 * ) + void ktime_get_coarse_raw_ts64( struct timespec64 * ) + + These are quicker than the non-coarse versions, but less accurate, + corresponding to CLOCK_MONONOTNIC_COARSE and CLOCK_REALTIME_COARSE + in user space, along with the equivalent boottime/tai/raw + timebase not available in user space. + + The time returned here corresponds to the last timer tick, which + may be as much as 10ms in the past (for CONFIG_HZ=100), same as + reading the 'jiffies' variable. These are only useful when called + in a fast path and one still expects better than second accuracy, + but can't easily use 'jiffies', e.g. for inode timestamps. + Skipping the hardware clock access saves around 100 CPU cycles + on most modern machines with a reliable cycle counter, but + up to several microseconds on older hardware with an external + clocksource. + +.. c:function:: u64 ktime_get_mono_fast_ns( void ) + u64 ktime_get_raw_fast_ns( void ) + u64 ktime_get_boot_fast_ns( void ) + u64 ktime_get_real_fast_ns( void ) + + These variants are safe to call from any context, including from + a non-maskable interrupt (NMI) during a timekeeper update, and + while we are entering suspend with the clocksource powered down. + This is useful in some tracing or debugging code as well as + machine check reporting, but most drivers should never call them, + since the time is allowed to jump under certain conditions. + +Deprecated time interfaces +-------------------------- + +Older kernels used some other interfaces that are now being phased out +but may appear in third-party drivers being ported here. In particular, +all interfaces returning a 'struct timeval' or 'struct timespec' have +been replaced because the tv_sec member overflows in year 2038 on 32-bit +architectures. These are the recommended replacements: + +.. c:function:: void ktime_get_ts( struct timespec * ) + + Use ktime_get() or ktime_get_ts64() instead. + +.. c:function:: struct timeval do_gettimeofday( void ) + struct timespec getnstimeofday( void ) + struct timespec64 getnstimeofday64( void ) + void ktime_get_real_ts( struct timespec * ) + + ktime_get_real_ts64() is a direct replacement, but consider using + monotonic time (ktime_get_ts64()) and/or a ktime_t based interface + (ktime_get()/ktime_get_real()). + +.. c:function:: struct timespec current_kernel_time( void ) + struct timespec64 current_kernel_time64( void ) + struct timespec get_monotonic_coarse( void ) + struct timespec64 get_monotonic_coarse64( void ) + + These are replaced by ktime_get_coarse_real_ts64() and + ktime_get_coarse_ts64(). However, A lot of code that wants + coarse-grained times can use the simple 'jiffies' instead, while + some drivers may actually want the higher resolution accessors + these days. + +.. c:function:: struct timespec getrawmonotonic( void ) + struct timespec64 getrawmonotonic64( void ) + struct timespec timekeeping_clocktai( void ) + struct timespec64 timekeeping_clocktai64( void ) + struct timespec get_monotonic_boottime( void ) + struct timespec64 get_monotonic_boottime64( void ) + + These are replaced by ktime_get_raw()/ktime_get_raw_ts64(), + ktime_get_clocktai()/ktime_get_clocktai_ts64() as well + as ktime_get_boottime()/ktime_get_boottime_ts64(). + However, if the particular choice of clock source is not + important for the user, consider converting to + ktime_get()/ktime_get_ts64() instead for consistency. diff --git a/include/linux/timekeeping.h b/include/linux/timekeeping.h index 86bc2026efce..947b1b8d2d01 100644 --- a/include/linux/timekeeping.h +++ b/include/linux/timekeeping.h @@ -21,6 +21,21 @@ extern int do_sys_settimeofday64(const struct timespec64 *tv, const struct timezone *tz);

/* + * ktime_get() family: read the current time in a multitude of ways, + * + * The default time reference is CLOCK_MONOTONIC, starting at + * boot time but not counting the time spent in suspend. + * For other references, use the functions with "real", "clocktai", + * "boottime" and "raw" suffixes. + * + * To get the time in a different format, use the ones wit + * "ns", "ts64" and "seconds" suffix. + * + * See Documentation/core-api/timekeeping.rst for more details. + */ + + +/* * timespec64 based interfaces */ extern void ktime_get_raw_ts64(struct timespec64 *ts);