linux/kernel
Paulo Marques b7e4e85337 [PATCH] setitimer timer expires too early
It seems that the code responsible for this is in kernel/itimer.c:126:

	p->signal->real_timer.expires = jiffies + interval;
	add_timer(&p->signal->real_timer);

If you request an interval of, lets say 900 usecs, the interval given by
timeval_to_jiffies will be 1.

If you request this when we are half-way between two timer ticks, the
interval will only give 400 usecs.

If we want to guarantee that we never ever give intervals less than
requested, the simple solution would be to change that to:

	p->signal->real_timer.expires = jiffies + interval + 1;

This however will produce pathological cases, like having a idle system
being requested 1 ms timeouts will give systematically 2 ms timeouts,
whereas currently it simply gives a few usecs less than 1 ms.

The complex (and more computationally expensive) solution would be to
check the gettimeofday time, and compute the correct number of jiffies.
This way, if we request a 300 usecs timer 200 usecs inside the timer
tick, we can wait just one tick, but not if we are 800 usecs inside the
tick. This would also mean that we would have to lock preemption during
these computations to avoid races, etc.

I've searched the archives but couldn't find this particular issue being
discussed before.

Attached is a patch to do the simple solution, in case anybody thinks
that it should be used.

Signed-Off-By: Paulo Marques <pmarques@grupopie.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-05-05 16:36:41 -07:00
..
irq Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
power [PATCH] DocBook: changes and extensions to the kernel documentation 2005-05-01 08:59:25 -07:00
acct.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
audit.c Merge with master.kernel.org:/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git 2005-05-05 13:59:37 +01:00
auditsc.c [AUDIT] LOGIN message credentials 2005-04-29 17:30:07 +01:00
capability.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
compat.c [PATCH] Fix get_compat_sigevent() 2005-04-16 15:24:01 -07:00
configs.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
cpu.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
cpuset.c [PATCH] cpuset: remove function attribute const 2005-04-16 15:25:59 -07:00
dma.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
exec_domain.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
exit.c [patch] MCA recovery module undefined symbol fix 2005-05-03 13:58:17 -07:00
extable.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
fork.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
futex.c [PATCH] convert that currently tests _NSIG directly to use valid_signal() 2005-05-01 08:59:14 -07:00
intermodule.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
itimer.c [PATCH] setitimer timer expires too early 2005-05-05 16:36:41 -07:00
kallsyms.c [PATCH] ppc32: platform-specific functions missing from kallsyms. 2005-05-05 16:36:31 -07:00
kfifo.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
kmod.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
kprobes.c [PATCH] kprobes: Allow multiple kprobes at the same address 2005-05-05 16:36:39 -07:00
ksysfs.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
kthread.c [PATCH] use smp_mb/wmb/rmb where possible 2005-05-01 08:58:47 -07:00
Makefile [PATCH] ppc64: remove hidden -fno-omit-frame-pointer for schedule.c 2005-05-05 16:36:32 -07:00
module.c [PATCH] Change synchronize_kernel to _rcu and _sched 2005-05-01 08:59:04 -07:00
panic.c [SPARC]: Stop-A printk cleanup 2005-04-24 20:38:02 -07:00
params.c [PATCH] kernel/param.c: don't use .max when .num is NULL in param_array_set() 2005-04-16 15:25:42 -07:00
pid.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
posix-cpu-timers.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
posix-timers.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
printk.c [PATCH] clean up kernel messages 2005-05-01 08:59:02 -07:00
profile.c [PATCH] Change synchronize_kernel to _rcu and _sched 2005-05-01 08:59:04 -07:00
ptrace.c [PATCH] convert that currently tests _NSIG directly to use valid_signal() 2005-05-01 08:59:14 -07:00
rcupdate.c [PATCH] Deprecate synchronize_kernel, GPL replacement 2005-05-01 08:59:04 -07:00
resource.c [PATCH] pci enumeration on ixp2000: overflow in kernel/resource.c 2005-04-16 15:25:58 -07:00
sched.c [PATCH] DocBook: fix some descriptions 2005-05-01 08:59:26 -07:00
seccomp.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
signal.c [PATCH] convert that currently tests _NSIG directly to use valid_signal() 2005-05-01 08:59:14 -07:00
softirq.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
spinlock.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
stop_machine.c [PATCH] use smp_mb/wmb/rmb where possible 2005-05-01 08:58:47 -07:00
sys_ni.c [PATCH] consolidate sys_shmat 2005-05-01 08:59:12 -07:00
sys.c [PATCH] convert that currently tests _NSIG directly to use valid_signal() 2005-05-01 08:59:14 -07:00
sysctl.c [PATCH] DocBook: fix some descriptions 2005-05-01 08:59:26 -07:00
time.c [PATCH] time interpolator: Fix settimeofday inaccuracy 2005-04-28 08:13:58 -07:00
timer.c [PATCH] use smp_mb/wmb/rmb where possible 2005-05-01 08:58:47 -07:00
uid16.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
user.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
wait.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
workqueue.c [PATCH] re-export cancel_rearming_delayed_workqueue 2005-04-16 15:23:59 -07:00