27 Jul, 2007

1 commit

  • Davi fixed a missing cast in the __put_user(), that was making timerfd
    return a single byte instead of the full value.

    Talking with Michael about the timerfd man page, we think it'd be better to
    use a u64 for the returned value, to align it with the eventfd
    implementation.

    This is an ABI change. The timerfd code is new in 2.6.22 and if we merge this
    into 2.6.23 then we should also merge it into 2.6.22.x. That will leave a few
    early 2.6.22 kernels out in the wild which might misbehave when a future
    timerfd-enabled glibc is run on them.

    mtk says: The difference would be that read() will only return 4 bytes, while
    the application will expect 8. If the application is checking the size of
    returned value, as it should, then it will be able to detect the problem (it
    could even be sophisticated enough to know that if this is a 4-byte return,
    then it is running on an old 2.6.22 kernel). If the application is not
    checking the return from read(), then its 8-byte buffer will not be filled --
    the contents of the last 4 bytes will be undefined, so the u64 value as a
    whole will be junk.

    Signed-off-by: Davide Libenzi
    Cc: Michael Kerrisk
    Cc: Davi Arnaut
    Cc:
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Davide Libenzi
     

19 May, 2007

1 commit

  • The timerfd was using the unlocked waitqueue operations, but it was
    using a different lock, so poll_wait() would race with it.

    This makes timerfd directly use the waitqueue lock.

    Signed-off-by: Davide Libenzi
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Davide Libenzi
     

11 May, 2007

1 commit

  • This patch introduces a new system call for timers events delivered though
    file descriptors. This allows timer event to be used with standard POSIX
    poll(2), select(2) and read(2). As a consequence of supporting the Linux
    f_op->poll subsystem, they can be used with epoll(2) too.

    The system call is defined as:

    int timerfd(int ufd, int clockid, int flags, const struct itimerspec *utmr);

    The "ufd" parameter allows for re-use (re-programming) of an existing timerfd
    w/out going through the close/open cycle (same as signalfd). If "ufd" is -1,
    s new file descriptor will be created, otherwise the existing "ufd" will be
    re-programmed.

    The "clockid" parameter is either CLOCK_MONOTONIC or CLOCK_REALTIME. The time
    specified in the "utmr->it_value" parameter is the expiry time for the timer.

    If the TFD_TIMER_ABSTIME flag is set in "flags", this is an absolute time,
    otherwise it's a relative time.

    If the time specified in the "utmr->it_interval" is not zero (.tv_sec == 0,
    tv_nsec == 0), this is the period at which the following ticks should be
    generated.

    The "utmr->it_interval" should be set to zero if only one tick is requested.
    Setting the "utmr->it_value" to zero will disable the timer, or will create a
    timerfd without the timer enabled.

    The function returns the new (or same, in case "ufd" is a valid timerfd
    descriptor) file, or -1 in case of error.

    As stated before, the timerfd file descriptor supports poll(2), select(2) and
    epoll(2). When a timer event happened on the timerfd, a POLLIN mask will be
    returned.

    The read(2) call can be used, and it will return a u32 variable holding the
    number of "ticks" that happened on the interface since the last call to
    read(2). The read(2) call supportes the O_NONBLOCK flag too, and EAGAIN will
    be returned if no ticks happened.

    A quick test program, shows timerfd working correctly on my amd64 box:

    http://www.xmailserver.org/timerfd-test.c

    [akpm@linux-foundation.org: add sys_timerfd to sys_ni.c]
    Signed-off-by: Davide Libenzi
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Davide Libenzi