clock_gettime function doesn't scale to real time.. and changing CNTFRQ_EL0 doesn't make any change..(arm64)

[Chan Kim]

Hi,Siddh and Linus,

I tried using 'time' command to measure the time and my program output is the same in commercial intel machine (ubuntu 20.04).
...
fib(041) = 165580141
fib(042) = 267914296
fibonacci finishing...
Execution time : 3.801840 sec

real	0m3.806s
user	0m3.802s
sys	0m0.005s

So it looks like the application program doesn't have problem.
In the program exec_time_nsec is actually in unit of second. Because tv_nsec is in unit of nsec, I'm converting it to second by dividing it with BILLION.
And yes, the CNTFRQ_EL0 is for software use. Hardware just runs with clock and it know only the number of clocks and doesn't know 1000000 clock period physically represents what seconds. CNTFRQ_EL0 is letting the software able to convert the number of clocks to physical time.
I'm at home now and can't do experiment with the board now. I'll try following the pc_clock_gettime function as you showed to see how it works.

Thanks for the advices.
Chan Kim

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Siddh Raman Pant <code at siddh.me>
>Sent: Saturday, November 5, 2022 4:51 AM
>To: Chan Kim <ckim at etri.re.kr>
>Cc: Kernel Newbies <kernelnewbies at kernelnewbies.org>
>Subject: Re: clock_gettime function doesn't scale to real time.. and
>changing CNTFRQ_EL0 doesn't make any change..(arm64)
>
>On Fri, 04 Nov 2022 14:34:15 +0530, Chan Kim wrote:
>> Hello linux experts and newbies,
>>
>> I have ported linux on our arm64 fpga board. Both 5.10.0 and 5.15.xx
>> works ok with minimal config.
>>
>> I have run a simple application and timed the processing time using
>> clock_gettime function.
>>
>> It felt like it took almost 2.3 seconds but the program say it took
>> only
>> 0.36 seconds.
>
>Try a simple command line loop to see if the problem is with system or your
>program: while $(sleep 1); do echo "Hi"; done;
>
>Also, while of no concern here, note that kernel also has a real-time
>config (CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT).
>
>> Here is how I did it in the application.
>>
>> Int main() {
>>       struct timespec start, stop;
>> 	float exec_time_sec, exec_time_nsec;
>>
>>       //check start time
>> 	if (clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &start) == -1 ) {
>> 	     perror ("clock_gettime");
>> 	     exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
>> 	}
>>
>>       Do something... (calculate fibonacci value for 1 ~ 30)
>>
>>       //check end time
>> 	if (clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &stop) == -1 ) {
>> 		perror ("clock_gettime");
>> 		exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
>> 	}
>>
>> 	//Normalize to mili second
>> 	exec_time_sec = (float)(stop.tv_sec - start.tv_sec);
>> 	exec_time_nsec = (float)((double)(stop.tv_nsec -
>start.tv_nsec)/(double)BILLION);
>> 	printf("Execution time : %f sec\n", exec_time_sec + exec_time_nsec);
>>
>>       return 0;
>>
>> }
>
>Adding to what Linus said in the other reply, CLOCK_REALTIME is not
>guaranteed to be monotonic. For calculation of intervals, you should
>instead use CLOCK_MONOTONIC or CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW.
>
>Also, try just having Fibonacci calculation in main, and then use the
>`time` command to achieve what you want.
>
>> I used u-boot program for loading linux kernel and the u-boot program
>> sets the CNTFRQ_EL0 register with 5000000.
>>
>> (which is 5MHz, I heard the system clock runs at 5MHz in the board).
>>
>> The description of the register in armv8 arch manual says :
>> > This register is provided so that software can discover the
>> > frequency of the system counter. It must be programmed with this
>> > value as part of system initialization. The value of the register is
>not interpreted by hardware.
>>
>> I tried setting the CNTFRQ_EL0 with 20Mhz, expecting the execution to
>> be displayed 4 times shorter but it is the same!
>
>Because as the description says, this register is not interpreted by the
>hardware. That means this won't affect hardware in any way, and thus won't
>increase frequency. That's why your execution time remains the same.
>
>The value stored here is for use by software to know the clock frequency of
>the machine, so it can do its time related calculations appropriately.
>
>What you did is equivalent of trying to hoodwink the system!
>
>> I couldn't find how linux uses clock_gettime.
>
>If you mean how clock_gettime function is defined, see it here:
>https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source/kernel/time/posix-
>clock.c#L259
>
>Otherwise: man clock_gettime
>
>> How can I solve this problem?
>> Any advice will be deeply appreciated.
>
>Try making the changes and let us know. This is new for me too!
>
>> Thank you!
>> Chan Kim
>
>Please use plain text email instead of HTML, that's the kernel mailing list
>etiquette. It is also superior once you get the hang of it! :)
>
>Thanks,
>Siddh