Currently, there is no mechanism to keep time sync between guest and host
in arm/arm64 virtualization environment. Time in guest will drift compared
with host after boot up as they may both use third party time sources
to correct their time respectively. The time deviation will be in order
of milliseconds. But in some scenarios,like in cloud environment, we ask
for higher time precision.
kvm ptp clock, which chooses the host clock source as a reference
clock to sync time between guest and host, has been adopted by x86
which takes the time sync order from milliseconds to nanoseconds.
This patch enables kvm ptp clock for arm/arm64 and improves clock sync precision
significantly.
Test result comparisons between with kvm ptp clock and without it in arm/arm64
are as follows. This test derived from the result of command 'chronyc
sources'. we should take more care of the last sample column which shows
the offset between the local clock and the source at the last measurement.
no kvm ptp in guest:
MS Name/IP address Stratum Poll Reach LastRx Last sample
========================================================================
^* dns1.synet.edu.cn 2 6 377 13 +1040us[+1581us] +/- 21ms
^* dns1.synet.edu.cn 2 6 377 21 +1040us[+1581us] +/- 21ms
^* dns1.synet.edu.cn 2 6 377 29 +1040us[+1581us] +/- 21ms
^* dns1.synet.edu.cn 2 6 377 37 +1040us[+1581us] +/- 21ms
^* dns1.synet.edu.cn 2 6 377 45 +1040us[+1581us] +/- 21ms
^* dns1.synet.edu.cn 2 6 377 53 +1040us[+1581us] +/- 21ms
^* dns1.synet.edu.cn 2 6 377 61 +1040us[+1581us] +/- 21ms
^* dns1.synet.edu.cn 2 6 377 4 -130us[ +796us] +/- 21ms
^* dns1.synet.edu.cn 2 6 377 12 -130us[ +796us] +/- 21ms
^* dns1.synet.edu.cn 2 6 377 20 -130us[ +796us] +/- 21ms
in host:
MS Name/IP address Stratum Poll Reach LastRx Last sample
========================================================================
^* 120.25.115.20 2 7 377 72 -470us[ -603us] +/- 18ms
^* 120.25.115.20 2 7 377 92 -470us[ -603us] +/- 18ms
^* 120.25.115.20 2 7 377 112 -470us[ -603us] +/- 18ms
^* 120.25.115.20 2 7 377 2 +872ns[-6808ns] +/- 17ms
^* 120.25.115.20 2 7 377 22 +872ns[-6808ns] +/- 17ms
^* 120.25.115.20 2 7 377 43 +872ns[-6808ns] +/- 17ms
^* 120.25.115.20 2 7 377 63 +872ns[-6808ns] +/- 17ms
^* 120.25.115.20 2 7 377 83 +872ns[-6808ns] +/- 17ms
^* 120.25.115.20 2 7 377 103 +872ns[-6808ns] +/- 17ms
^* 120.25.115.20 2 7 377 123 +872ns[-6808ns] +/- 17ms
The dns1.synet.edu.cn is the network reference clock for guest and
120.25.115.20 is the network reference clock for host. we can't get the
clock error between guest and host directly, but a roughly estimated value
will be in order of hundreds of us to ms.
with kvm ptp in guest:
chrony has been disabled in host to remove the disturb by network clock.
MS Name/IP address Stratum Poll Reach LastRx Last sample
========================================================================
* PHC0 0 3 377 8 -7ns[ +1ns] +/- 3ns
* PHC0 0 3 377 8 +1ns[ +16ns] +/- 3ns
* PHC0 0 3 377 6 -4ns[ -0ns] +/- 6ns
* PHC0 0 3 377 6 -8ns[ -12ns] +/- 5ns
* PHC0 0 3 377 5 +2ns[ +4ns] +/- 4ns
* PHC0 0 3 377 13 +2ns[ +4ns] +/- 4ns
* PHC0 0 3 377 12 -4ns[ -6ns] +/- 4ns
* PHC0 0 3 377 11 -8ns[ -11ns] +/- 6ns
* PHC0 0 3 377 10 -14ns[ -20ns] +/- 4ns
* PHC0 0 3 377 8 +4ns[ +5ns] +/- 4ns
The PHC0 is the ptp clock which choose the host clock as its source
clock. So we can see that the clock difference between host and guest
is in order of ns.
Cc: Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>
Acked-by: Richard Cochran <richardcochran@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Jianyong Wu <jianyong.wu@arm.com>
Signed-off-by: Marc Zyngier <maz@kernel.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20201209060932.212364-8-jianyong.wu@arm.com
Jianyong Wu