Re: [patch 4/9] Remove the TSC synchronization on SMP machines

From: Vojtech Pavlik
Date: Wed Feb 14 2007 - 01:59:45 EST


On Tue, Feb 13, 2007 at 11:38:33PM +0100, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Tue, Feb 13, 2007 at 11:18:48PM +0100, Vojtech Pavlik wrote:
> > It's not inherent to ntpd's design, but the current (which may have been
> > fixed since I looked last) implementation of the NTP PLL in the kernel.
> >
> > The interaction with ntpd can be fixed and I've done it in the past
> > once, although the fix wasn't all that nice.
>
> Yep, it can slowly move towards the correct time, but ntpdate (or more
> generally settimeofday) remains a fundamental issue (and I prefer time
> skews to be fixed ASAP, not slowly).

Skipping forward is trivial. For going backward, you can stop time (or
make it go forward very slowly). Still the output will be strictly
monotonic (but not more than that).

For small changes you simply change your estimate of the base clock
frequency to be different from what the specs say. Tuning that in a PLL
will get you to sync with true atomic GMT.

--
Vojtech Pavlik
Director SuSE Labs
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