timer_base::must_forward_clock is indicating that the base clock might be
stale due to a long idle sleep.
The forwarding of the base clock takes place in the timer softirq or when a
timer is enqueued to a base which is idle. If the enqueue of timer to an
idle base happens from a remote CPU, then the following race can happen:
CPU0 CPU1
run_timer_softirq mod_timer
base = lock_timer_base(timer);
base->must_forward_clk = false
if (base->must_forward_clk)
forward(base); -> skipped
enqueue_timer(base, timer, idx);
-> idx is calculated high due to
stale base
unlock_timer_base(timer);
base = lock_timer_base(timer);
forward(base);
The root cause is that timer_base::must_forward_clk is cleared outside the
timer_base::lock held region, so the remote queuing CPU observes it as
cleared, but the base clock is still stale. This can cause large
granularity values for timers, i.e. the accuracy of the expiry time
suffers.
Prevent this by clearing the flag with timer_base::lock held, so that the
forwarding takes place before the cleared flag is observable by a remote
CPU.
Signed-off-by: Gaurav Kohli <gkohli@codeaurora.org>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: john.stultz@linaro.org
Cc: sboyd@kernel.org
Cc: linux-arm-msm@vger.kernel.org
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/1533199863-22748-1-git-send-email-gkohli@codeaurora.org
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