317a76a996
- Consolidate the VDSO storage
The VDSO data storage and data layout has been largely architecture
specific for historical reasons. That increases the maintenance effort
and causes inconsistencies over and over.
There is no real technical reason for architecture specific layouts and
implementations. The architecture specific details can easily be
integrated into a generic layout, which also reduces the amount of
duplicated code for managing the mappings.
Convert all architectures over to a unified layout and common mapping
infrastructure. This splits the VDSO data layout into subsystem
specific blocks, timekeeping, random and architecture parts, which
provides a better structure and allows to improve and update the
functionalities without conflict and interaction.
- Rework the timekeeping data storage
The current implementation is designed for exposing system timekeeping
accessors, which was good enough at the time when it was designed.
PTP and Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) change that as there are
requirements to expose independent PTP clocks, which are not related to
system timekeeping.
Replace the monolithic data storage by a structured layout, which
allows to add support for independent PTP clocks on top while reusing
both the data structures and the time accessor implementations.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----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=rwei
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Merge tag 'timers-vdso-2025-03-23' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip
Pull VDSO infrastructure updates from Thomas Gleixner:
- Consolidate the VDSO storage
The VDSO data storage and data layout has been largely architecture
specific for historical reasons. That increases the maintenance
effort and causes inconsistencies over and over.
There is no real technical reason for architecture specific layouts
and implementations. The architecture specific details can easily be
integrated into a generic layout, which also reduces the amount of
duplicated code for managing the mappings.
Convert all architectures over to a unified layout and common mapping
infrastructure. This splits the VDSO data layout into subsystem
specific blocks, timekeeping, random and architecture parts, which
provides a better structure and allows to improve and update the
functionalities without conflict and interaction.
- Rework the timekeeping data storage
The current implementation is designed for exposing system
timekeeping accessors, which was good enough at the time when it was
designed.
PTP and Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) change that as there are
requirements to expose independent PTP clocks, which are not related
to system timekeeping.
Replace the monolithic data storage by a structured layout, which
allows to add support for independent PTP clocks on top while reusing
both the data structures and the time accessor implementations.
* tag 'timers-vdso-2025-03-23' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip: (55 commits)
sparc/vdso: Always reject undefined references during linking
x86/vdso: Always reject undefined references during linking
vdso: Rework struct vdso_time_data and introduce struct vdso_clock
vdso: Move architecture related data before basetime data
powerpc/vdso: Prepare introduction of struct vdso_clock
arm64/vdso: Prepare introduction of struct vdso_clock
x86/vdso: Prepare introduction of struct vdso_clock
time/namespace: Prepare introduction of struct vdso_clock
vdso/namespace: Rename timens_setup_vdso_data() to reflect new vdso_clock struct
vdso/vsyscall: Prepare introduction of struct vdso_clock
vdso/gettimeofday: Prepare helper functions for introduction of struct vdso_clock
vdso/gettimeofday: Prepare do_coarse_timens() for introduction of struct vdso_clock
vdso/gettimeofday: Prepare do_coarse() for introduction of struct vdso_clock
vdso/gettimeofday: Prepare do_hres_timens() for introduction of struct vdso_clock
vdso/gettimeofday: Prepare do_hres() for introduction of struct vdso_clock
vdso/gettimeofday: Prepare introduction of struct vdso_clock
vdso/helpers: Prepare introduction of struct vdso_clock
vdso/datapage: Define vdso_clock to prepare for multiple PTP clocks
vdso: Make vdso_time_data cacheline aligned
arm64: Make asm/cache.h compatible with vDSO
...
|
||
|---|---|---|
| .. | ||
| asm | ||
| asm-generic | ||
| drm | ||
| linux | ||
| README | ||
README
Why we want a copy of kernel headers in tools?
==============================================
There used to be no copies, with tools/ code using kernel headers
directly. From time to time tools/perf/ broke due to legitimate kernel
hacking. At some point Linus complained about such direct usage. Then we
adopted the current model.
The way these headers are used in perf are not restricted to just
including them to compile something.
There are sometimes used in scripts that convert defines into string
tables, etc, so some change may break one of these scripts, or new MSRs
may use some different #define pattern, etc.
E.g.:
$ ls -1 tools/perf/trace/beauty/*.sh | head -5
tools/perf/trace/beauty/arch_errno_names.sh
tools/perf/trace/beauty/drm_ioctl.sh
tools/perf/trace/beauty/fadvise.sh
tools/perf/trace/beauty/fsconfig.sh
tools/perf/trace/beauty/fsmount.sh
$
$ tools/perf/trace/beauty/fadvise.sh
static const char *fadvise_advices[] = {
[0] = "NORMAL",
[1] = "RANDOM",
[2] = "SEQUENTIAL",
[3] = "WILLNEED",
[4] = "DONTNEED",
[5] = "NOREUSE",
};
$
The tools/perf/check-headers.sh script, part of the tools/ build
process, points out changes in the original files.
So its important not to touch the copies in tools/ when doing changes in
the original kernel headers, that will be done later, when
check-headers.sh inform about the change to the perf tools hackers.
Another explanation from Ingo Molnar:
It's better than all the alternatives we tried so far:
- Symbolic links and direct #includes: this was the original approach but
was pushed back on from the kernel side, when tooling modified the
headers and broke them accidentally for kernel builds.
- Duplicate self-defined ABI headers like glibc: double the maintenance
burden, double the chance for mistakes, plus there's no tech-driven
notification mechanism to look at new kernel side changes.
What we are doing now is a third option:
- A software-enforced copy-on-write mechanism of kernel headers to
tooling, driven by non-fatal warnings on the tooling side build when
kernel headers get modified:
Warning: Kernel ABI header differences:
diff -u tools/include/uapi/drm/i915_drm.h include/uapi/drm/i915_drm.h
diff -u tools/include/uapi/linux/fs.h include/uapi/linux/fs.h
diff -u tools/include/uapi/linux/kvm.h include/uapi/linux/kvm.h
...
The tooling policy is to always pick up the kernel side headers as-is,
and integate them into the tooling build. The warnings above serve as a
notification to tooling maintainers that there's changes on the kernel
side.
We've been using this for many years now, and it might seem hacky, but
works surprisingly well.