Re: PROBLEM: skew message does not handle negative ns skew

[Feng Tang]

On Wed, Jun 07, 2023 at 12:04:49PM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 06, 2023 at 09:52:11PM +0800, Feng Tang wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 06, 2023 at 02:09:08PM +0100, Chris Bainbridge wrote:
> > > On Tue, 6 Jun 2023 at 13:50, Feng Tang <feng.tang@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > And I'm have no idea if there is a real hardware/firmware issue
> > > > or just a false alarm.
> > > 
> > > Is a negative reported skew valid? I don't know, I had assumed so, so
> > > the problem was the conversion from -878159 ns to 18446744073708 ms.
> > 
> > I think it's valid. The related code is from kernel/time/clocksource.c: 
> > 
> > 	"
> > 	cs_wd_msec = div_u64_rem(cs_nsec - wd_nsec, 1000U * 1000U, &wd_rem);
> > 	wd_msec = div_u64_rem(wd_nsec, 1000U * 1000U, &wd_rem);
> > 	pr_warn("                      Clocksource '%s' skewed %lld ns (%lld ms) over watchdog '%s' interval of %lld ns (%lld ms)\n",
> > 		cs->name, cs_nsec - wd_nsec, cs_wd_msec, watchdog->name, wd_nsec, wd_msec);
> > 	"
> > 
> > The negative value just means the watchdog is running faster than
> > TSC in the 512 ms checking interval. The 18446744073708 ms is just
> > a conversion from s64 value in ns (-878159) to a u64 ns, then a
> > u64 ms. 
> 
> That is a bit user-unfriendly.  Does the following fix address this
> issue at your end?
> 
> 							Thanx, Paul
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> commit 8eb836f2dd44cb1e80dfc603cf47c03603dadcdb
> Author: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Date:   Wed Jun 7 11:59:49 2023 -0700
> 
>     clocksource: Handle negative skews in "skew is too large" messages
>     
>     The nanosecond-to-millisecond skew computation uses unsigned arithmetic,
>     which produces user-unfriendly large positive numbers for negative skews.
>     Therefore, use signed arithmetic for this computation in order to preserve
>     the negativity.

It does make the error message more consistent and less confusing. Thanks.

Reviewed-by: Feng Tang <feng.tang@xxxxxxxxx>

>     
>     Reported-by: Chris Bainbridge <chris.bainbridge@xxxxxxxxx>
>     Reported-by: Feng Tang <feng.tang@xxxxxxxxx>
>     Fixes: dd029269947a ("clocksource: Improve "skew is too large" messages")
>     Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@xxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> diff --git a/kernel/time/clocksource.c b/kernel/time/clocksource.c
> index 91836b727cef..0600e16dbafe 100644
> --- a/kernel/time/clocksource.c
> +++ b/kernel/time/clocksource.c
> @@ -473,8 +473,8 @@ static void clocksource_watchdog(struct timer_list *unused)
>  		/* Check the deviation from the watchdog clocksource. */
>  		md = cs->uncertainty_margin + watchdog->uncertainty_margin;
>  		if (abs(cs_nsec - wd_nsec) > md) {
> -			u64 cs_wd_msec;
> -			u64 wd_msec;
> +			s64 cs_wd_msec;
> +			s64 wd_msec;
>  			u32 wd_rem;
>  
>  			pr_warn("timekeeping watchdog on CPU%d: Marking clocksource '%s' as unstable because the skew is too large:\n",
> @@ -483,8 +483,8 @@ static void clocksource_watchdog(struct timer_list *unused)
>  				watchdog->name, wd_nsec, wdnow, wdlast, watchdog->mask);
>  			pr_warn("                      '%s' cs_nsec: %lld cs_now: %llx cs_last: %llx mask: %llx\n",
>  				cs->name, cs_nsec, csnow, cslast, cs->mask);
> -			cs_wd_msec = div_u64_rem(cs_nsec - wd_nsec, 1000U * 1000U, &wd_rem);
> -			wd_msec = div_u64_rem(wd_nsec, 1000U * 1000U, &wd_rem);
> +			cs_wd_msec = div_s64_rem(cs_nsec - wd_nsec, 1000 * 1000, &wd_rem);
> +			wd_msec = div_s64_rem(wd_nsec, 1000 * 1000, &wd_rem);
>  			pr_warn("                      Clocksource '%s' skewed %lld ns (%lld ms) over watchdog '%s' interval of %lld ns (%lld ms)\n",
>  				cs->name, cs_nsec - wd_nsec, cs_wd_msec, watchdog->name, wd_nsec, wd_msec);
>  			if (curr_clocksource == cs)