An: Olivier Croquette <ocroquette@free.fr>
Betreff: Re: 2.6.12 and setitimer
Datum: Mon, 4 Jul 2005 08:36:35 +0200 (MEST)
Hi Olivier,
> You will probably consider adding also a note to point out that the bug
> will stay a known bug of the 2.4 serie:
>
> http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/7/1/165
First off, I _very_ much appreciate the fact that you keep
informing me of the progress of this bug! Thank you.
At the moment, I'm inlined yo leave the manual page as it is.
It currently reads:
On certain systems (including x86), Linux ker‐
nels before version 2.6.12 have a bug which
will produce premature timer expirations of up
to one jiffy under some circumstances. This
bug is fixed in kernel 2.6.12.
To me that implies that the bug also affects kernels before
2.4 -- e.g., 2.4.x. Now, what would be interesting is if the
bug *does* get fixed in 2.4, then I could also add a note
about the 2.4.x version where it is fixed.
In the meantime, I have added a note to myself (i.e., a comment
in the man page source) about this point.
If the bug *does* eventually get fixed in 2.4.x, and you
hear of it, please do let me know.
Thanks,
Michael
Regarding man page documentation of the problem of short sleeps
for setiteimer(2)...
> > -- pointers to those threads
>
> http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4569
> http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/4/29/163
>
> > -- indications of which kernel versions show this bahaviour
>
> AFAIK, all versions as far as x86 is concerned.
> Dunno if it is hardware specific.
>
> > -- a (short) test program to demonstrate it, if you have one.
>
> See the bugzilla bug's attachments
Sorry for the long delay in following this up, but I've got to
it now. I tweaked your suggestions slightly:
{{
Timers will never expire before the requested time,
-instead expiring some short, constant time afterwards, dependent
-on the system timer resolution (currently 10ms).
+but may expire some (short) time afterwards, which depends
+on the system timer resolution and on the system load.
+Upon expiration, a signal will be generated and the timer reset.
+If the timer expires while the process is active (always true for
+On certain systems (including x86), the Linux kernel has a bug which will
+produce premature timer expirations of up to one jiffy under some
+circumstances.
}}
Thanks for this bug reporet,
Nishanth: if and when your changes are accepted, and the problem
is thus fixed, could you please send me a notification of that
fact, and I can then further amend the manual pages.
Cheers,
Michael
/* itimer_short_interval_bug.c
June 2005
In current Linux kernels, an interval timer set using setitimer()
can sometimes sleep *less* than the specified interval.
This program demonstrates the behaviour by looping through all
itimer values from 1 microsecond upwards, in one microsecond steps.
*/
/* Adapted from a program by Olivier Croquette, June 2005 */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/time.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
typedef unsigned long long int u_time_t; /* in microsecs */
static int handler_flag;
/* return time as a number of microsecs */
static u_time_t
gettime(void )
{
struct timeval tv;
if ( gettimeofday(&tv, NULL) == -1) {
perror("gettimeofday()");
return 0;
}
return (tv.tv_usec + tv.tv_sec * 1000000LL);
}
static void
handler (int sig, siginfo_t *siginfo, void *context)
{
handler_flag++;
return ;
}
/* Sleep for 'time' microsecs. */
static int
isleep(u_time_t time)
{
struct itimerval newtv;
sigset_t sigset;
struct sigaction sigact;
if (time == 0)
return 0;
/* block SIGALRM */
sigemptyset (&sigset);
sigaddset (&sigset, SIGALRM);
sigprocmask (SIG_BLOCK, &sigset, NULL);
/* set up our handler */
sigact.sa_sigaction = handler;
sigemptyset(&sigact.sa_mask);
sigact.sa_flags = SA_SIGINFO;
sigaction (SIGALRM, &sigact, NULL);
newtv.it_interval.tv_sec = 0;
newtv.it_interval.tv_usec = 0;
newtv.it_value.tv_sec = time / 1000000;
newtv.it_value.tv_usec = time % 1000000;
if (setitimer(ITIMER_REAL,&newtv,NULL) == -1) {
perror("setitimer(set)");
return 1;
}
sigemptyset (&sigset);
sigsuspend (&sigset);
return 0;
}
int
main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
u_time_t wait;
int loop, numLoops;
u_time_t t1, t2;
u_time_t actual;
long long minDiff, maxDiff, totDiff, diff;
int numFail = 0;
if (argc != 2) {
fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s num-loops\n", argv[0]);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
} /* if */
numLoops = atoi(argv[1]);
setbuf(stdout, NULL);
for (wait = 1; ; wait++) {
maxDiff = 0;
numFail = 0;
totDiff = 0;
minDiff = -wait;
if (wait % 10000 == 0)
printf("%llu\n", wait);
for (loop = 0; loop < numLoops; loop++) {
t1 = gettime();
handler_flag = 0;
isleep(wait);
if ( handler_flag != 1 )
printf("Problem with the handler flag (%d)!\n", handler_flag);
t2 = gettime();
actual = t2 - t1;
if ( actual < wait ) {
diff = actual - wait;
if (diff < maxDiff)
maxDiff = diff;
if (diff > minDiff)
minDiff = diff;
totDiff += diff;
numFail++;
} /* if */
} /* for */
if (numFail > 0)
printf("%llu: %3d fail (%4lld %4lld; avg=%6.1f)\n",
wait, numFail, minDiff, maxDiff,
(double) totDiff / numFail);
} /* for */
return 0;
} /* main */
Michael Kerrisk