Re: [Qemu-devel] [RESEND][PATCH 0/3] Fix guest time drift under heavy load.

[Gleb Natapov]

On Thu, Nov 06, 2008 at 10:37:43AM +0100, andrzej zaborowski wrote:
> 2008/11/6 Gleb Natapov <address@hidden>:
> > On Wed, Nov 05, 2008 at 04:48:32PM +0100, andrzej zaborowski wrote:
> >> > Btw: I ack the whole thing, including the problem, the scenario and the
> >> > solution.
> >>
> >> I don't, as far as I understand it's a -win2k-hack type of addition,
> >> i.e. the hardware doesn't do this but we want to improve usability by
> >> working around a bad guest behaviour.  Modifying qemu_irq abstraction
> >> doesn't sound like the right place for that, qemu_irq contrary to what
> >> the name suggests doesn't have to be connected to any interrupt.
> >>
> > It is nothing like a -win2k-hack since there is no any guest "bad
> > behaviour" that cause the problem. Yes real hardware doesn't do this,
> > but real hardware also provides OS with enough CPU power to handle every
> > single timer interrupt.
> 
> A guest that counts on having enough CPU for something is
> timing-depenent (buggy).
> 
Tell this to RT developers who count each CPU cycle.

> > And even if _some_ interrupts are dropped the
> > drift is easily fixed with NTP. Try to run Windows XP on very slow machine
> > and I am sure you'll see very noticeable time drift.
> 
> Exactly.  You'll find the drift on real hardware, so you should find
> it in the emulator too.  You're trying to hack around it.
>
If I'll try to run windows XP on 486 then yes, I'll see the time drift.
After analyzing the problem I, most certainly, will decide that HW is
too old will buy modern CPU and will solve the time drift problem. What do
you propose for QEMU users? To use real HW?

> Linux doesn't see this because the clocksource and the
> clockevents-device come from separate clks there.  It is a windows'
> problem.  It *is* "bad behaviour".
OK we will call the flag -win-time-drift-hack.

> 
> >
> >> Instead you can have the interrupt sources register a callback in the
> >> PIC that the PIC calls when the interrupt wasn't delivered.  Or.. in
> > It requires the mapping from interrupt vector inside the PIC to
> > interrupt source.
> 
> Of course.
> 
> > This approach was rejected long time ago.
> 
> Then you'll have to find a different one.
> 

I found one. Here it is, implemented by this patch series.

> qemu_irq is the wrong place.
Why? Don't give me "that is not how real HW works". Real HW, if properly
configured, will behave more or less deterministically. I.e if timer
interrupt is configured to generate highest priority interrupt vector
and IRQ handler is fast enough (can be calculated knowing CPU freq) the
chances of loosing interrupt will be minimal. And those few that are
lost due to SMM or NMI can be compensated by NTP.

> >
> >> the case of mc146818rtc.c wouldn't it be enough to check if the irq
> >> has been acked by reading RTC_REG_C?  e.g.
> >>
> >> static void rtc_periodic_timer(void *opaque)
> >> {
> >>     RTCState *s = opaque;
> >>
> >>     rtc_timer_update(s, s->next_periodic_time);
> >> +   if (s->cmos_data[RTC_REG_C] & 0xc0)
> >> +         s->irq_coalesced++;
> >>     s->cmos_data[RTC_REG_C] |= 0xc0;
> >>     qemu_irq_raise(s->irq);
> >> }
> >>
> > PIC/APIC in effect has a queue of one interrupt. This means that if
> > timer tick is still not acknowledged it doesn't mean that interrupt
> > was not queued for delivery inside a PIC.
> 
> This doesn't matter, the tick that arrived while a previous interrupt
> was not acked yet, is lost anyway,
Not it is not. Not necessary. It can be queued inside PIC and delivered
by PIC itself immediately after interrupt acknowledgement.

>                                    i.e. had been coalesced.  So
> this'll give you the right number of interrupts to re-inject.
No it will not. You'll inject more interrupt then needed and clock will
drift forwards.

> 
> Ofcourse this, as well as your approach are both wrong because the
> guest may be intentionally ignoring the irq and expecting the
> interrupts to coalesce.  Once it starts processing the RTC interrupts
> it will get an unexpected storm.
> 
This is one more thing which is broken in your suggestion, not mine. If a
guest wants to ignore interrupt it will mask it and my patch don't report
interrupts delivered while masked as been coalesced.

--
                        Gleb.