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-
-1. Control Interfaces
-
-The interfaces for receiving network packages timestamps are:
-
-* SO_TIMESTAMP
- Generates a timestamp for each incoming packet in (not necessarily
- monotonic) system time. Reports the timestamp via recvmsg() in a
- control message in usec resolution.
- SO_TIMESTAMP is defined as SO_TIMESTAMP_NEW or SO_TIMESTAMP_OLD
- based on the architecture type and time_t representation of libc.
- Control message format is in struct __kernel_old_timeval for
- SO_TIMESTAMP_OLD and in struct __kernel_sock_timeval for
- SO_TIMESTAMP_NEW options respectively.
-
-* SO_TIMESTAMPNS
- Same timestamping mechanism as SO_TIMESTAMP, but reports the
- timestamp as struct timespec in nsec resolution.
- SO_TIMESTAMPNS is defined as SO_TIMESTAMPNS_NEW or SO_TIMESTAMPNS_OLD
- based on the architecture type and time_t representation of libc.
- Control message format is in struct timespec for SO_TIMESTAMPNS_OLD
- and in struct __kernel_timespec for SO_TIMESTAMPNS_NEW options
- respectively.
-
-* IP_MULTICAST_LOOP + SO_TIMESTAMP[NS]
- Only for multicast:approximate transmit timestamp obtained by
- reading the looped packet receive timestamp.
-
-* SO_TIMESTAMPING
- Generates timestamps on reception, transmission or both. Supports
- multiple timestamp sources, including hardware. Supports generating
- timestamps for stream sockets.
-
-
-1.1 SO_TIMESTAMP (also SO_TIMESTAMP_OLD and SO_TIMESTAMP_NEW):
-
-This socket option enables timestamping of datagrams on the reception
-path. Because the destination socket, if any, is not known early in
-the network stack, the feature has to be enabled for all packets. The
-same is true for all early receive timestamp options.
-
-For interface details, see `man 7 socket`.
-
-Always use SO_TIMESTAMP_NEW timestamp to always get timestamp in
-struct __kernel_sock_timeval format.
-
-SO_TIMESTAMP_OLD returns incorrect timestamps after the year 2038
-on 32 bit machines.
-
-1.2 SO_TIMESTAMPNS (also SO_TIMESTAMPNS_OLD and SO_TIMESTAMPNS_NEW):
-
-This option is identical to SO_TIMESTAMP except for the returned data type.
-Its struct timespec allows for higher resolution (ns) timestamps than the
-timeval of SO_TIMESTAMP (ms).
-
-Always use SO_TIMESTAMPNS_NEW timestamp to always get timestamp in
-struct __kernel_timespec format.
-
-SO_TIMESTAMPNS_OLD returns incorrect timestamps after the year 2038
-on 32 bit machines.
-
-1.3 SO_TIMESTAMPING (also SO_TIMESTAMPING_OLD and SO_TIMESTAMPING_NEW):
-
-Supports multiple types of timestamp requests. As a result, this
-socket option takes a bitmap of flags, not a boolean. In
-
- err = setsockopt(fd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_TIMESTAMPING, &val, sizeof(val));
-
-val is an integer with any of the following bits set. Setting other
-bit returns EINVAL and does not change the current state.
-
-The socket option configures timestamp generation for individual
-sk_buffs (1.3.1), timestamp reporting to the socket's error
-queue (1.3.2) and options (1.3.3). Timestamp generation can also
-be enabled for individual sendmsg calls using cmsg (1.3.4).
-
-
-1.3.1 Timestamp Generation
-
-Some bits are requests to the stack to try to generate timestamps. Any
-combination of them is valid. Changes to these bits apply to newly
-created packets, not to packets already in the stack. As a result, it
-is possible to selectively request timestamps for a subset of packets
-(e.g., for sampling) by embedding an send() call within two setsockopt
-calls, one to enable timestamp generation and one to disable it.
-Timestamps may also be generated for reasons other than being
-requested by a particular socket, such as when receive timestamping is
-enabled system wide, as explained earlier.
-
-SOF_TIMESTAMPING_RX_HARDWARE:
- Request rx timestamps generated by the network adapter.
-
-SOF_TIMESTAMPING_RX_SOFTWARE:
- Request rx timestamps when data enters the kernel. These timestamps
- are generated just after a device driver hands a packet to the
- kernel receive stack.
-
-SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_HARDWARE:
- Request tx timestamps generated by the network adapter. This flag
- can be enabled via both socket options and control messages.
-
-SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SOFTWARE:
- Request tx timestamps when data leaves the kernel. These timestamps
- are generated in the device driver as close as possible, but always
- prior to, passing the packet to the network interface. Hence, they
- require driver support and may not be available for all devices.
- This flag can be enabled via both socket options and control messages.
-
-
-SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SCHED:
- Request tx timestamps prior to entering the packet scheduler. Kernel
- transmit latency is, if long, often dominated by queuing delay. The
- difference between this timestamp and one taken at
- SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SOFTWARE will expose this latency independent
- of protocol processing. The latency incurred in protocol
- processing, if any, can be computed by subtracting a userspace
- timestamp taken immediately before send() from this timestamp. On
- machines with virtual devices where a transmitted packet travels
- through multiple devices and, hence, multiple packet schedulers,
- a timestamp is generated at each layer. This allows for fine
- grained measurement of queuing delay. This flag can be enabled
- via both socket options and control messages.
-
-SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_ACK:
- Request tx timestamps when all data in the send buffer has been
- acknowledged. This only makes sense for reliable protocols. It is
- currently only implemented for TCP. For that protocol, it may
- over-report measurement, because the timestamp is generated when all
- data up to and including the buffer at send() was acknowledged: the
- cumulative acknowledgment. The mechanism ignores SACK and FACK.
- This flag can be enabled via both socket options and control messages.
-
-
-1.3.2 Timestamp Reporting
-
-The other three bits control which timestamps will be reported in a
-generated control message. Changes to the bits take immediate
-effect at the timestamp reporting locations in the stack. Timestamps
-are only reported for packets that also have the relevant timestamp
-generation request set.
-
-SOF_TIMESTAMPING_SOFTWARE:
- Report any software timestamps when available.
-
-SOF_TIMESTAMPING_SYS_HARDWARE:
- This option is deprecated and ignored.
-
-SOF_TIMESTAMPING_RAW_HARDWARE:
- Report hardware timestamps as generated by
- SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_HARDWARE when available.
-
-
-1.3.3 Timestamp Options
-
-The interface supports the options
-
-SOF_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_ID:
-
- Generate a unique identifier along with each packet. A process can
- have multiple concurrent timestamping requests outstanding. Packets
- can be reordered in the transmit path, for instance in the packet
- scheduler. In that case timestamps will be queued onto the error
- queue out of order from the original send() calls. It is not always
- possible to uniquely match timestamps to the original send() calls
- based on timestamp order or payload inspection alone, then.
-
- This option associates each packet at send() with a unique
- identifier and returns that along with the timestamp. The identifier
- is derived from a per-socket u32 counter (that wraps). For datagram
- sockets, the counter increments with each sent packet. For stream
- sockets, it increments with every byte.
-
- The counter starts at zero. It is initialized the first time that
- the socket option is enabled. It is reset each time the option is
- enabled after having been disabled. Resetting the counter does not
- change the identifiers of existing packets in the system.
-
- This option is implemented only for transmit timestamps. There, the
- timestamp is always looped along with a struct sock_extended_err.
- The option modifies field ee_data to pass an id that is unique
- among all possibly concurrently outstanding timestamp requests for
- that socket.
-
-
-SOF_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_CMSG:
-
- Support recv() cmsg for all timestamped packets. Control messages
- are already supported unconditionally on all packets with receive
- timestamps and on IPv6 packets with transmit timestamp. This option
- extends them to IPv4 packets with transmit timestamp. One use case
- is to correlate packets with their egress device, by enabling socket
- option IP_PKTINFO simultaneously.
-
-
-SOF_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_TSONLY:
-
- Applies to transmit timestamps only. Makes the kernel return the
- timestamp as a cmsg alongside an empty packet, as opposed to
- alongside the original packet. This reduces the amount of memory
- charged to the socket's receive budget (SO_RCVBUF) and delivers
- the timestamp even if sysctl net.core.tstamp_allow_data is 0.
- This option disables SOF_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_CMSG.
-
-SOF_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_STATS:
-
- Optional stats that are obtained along with the transmit timestamps.
- It must be used together with SOF_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_TSONLY. When the
- transmit timestamp is available, the stats are available in a
- separate control message of type SCM_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_STATS, as a
- list of TLVs (struct nlattr) of types. These stats allow the
- application to associate various transport layer stats with
- the transmit timestamps, such as how long a certain block of
- data was limited by peer's receiver window.
-
-SOF_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_PKTINFO:
-
- Enable the SCM_TIMESTAMPING_PKTINFO control message for incoming
- packets with hardware timestamps. The message contains struct
- scm_ts_pktinfo, which supplies the index of the real interface which
- received the packet and its length at layer 2. A valid (non-zero)
- interface index will be returned only if CONFIG_NET_RX_BUSY_POLL is
- enabled and the driver is using NAPI. The struct contains also two
- other fields, but they are reserved and undefined.
-
-SOF_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_TX_SWHW:
-
- Request both hardware and software timestamps for outgoing packets
- when SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_HARDWARE and SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SOFTWARE
- are enabled at the same time. If both timestamps are generated,
- two separate messages will be looped to the socket's error queue,
- each containing just one timestamp.
-
-New applications are encouraged to pass SOF_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_ID to
-disambiguate timestamps and SOF_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_TSONLY to operate
-regardless of the setting of sysctl net.core.tstamp_allow_data.
-
-An exception is when a process needs additional cmsg data, for
-instance SOL_IP/IP_PKTINFO to detect the egress network interface.
-Then pass option SOF_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_CMSG. This option depends on
-having access to the contents of the original packet, so cannot be
-combined with SOF_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_TSONLY.
-
-
-1.3.4. Enabling timestamps via control messages
-
-In addition to socket options, timestamp generation can be requested
-per write via cmsg, only for SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_* (see Section 1.3.1).
-Using this feature, applications can sample timestamps per sendmsg()
-without paying the overhead of enabling and disabling timestamps via
-setsockopt:
-
- struct msghdr *msg;
- ...
- cmsg = CMSG_FIRSTHDR(msg);
- cmsg->cmsg_level = SOL_SOCKET;
- cmsg->cmsg_type = SO_TIMESTAMPING;
- cmsg->cmsg_len = CMSG_LEN(sizeof(__u32));
- *((__u32 *) CMSG_DATA(cmsg)) = SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SCHED |
- SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SOFTWARE |
- SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_ACK;
- err = sendmsg(fd, msg, 0);
-
-The SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_* flags set via cmsg will override
-the SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_* flags set via setsockopt.
-
-Moreover, applications must still enable timestamp reporting via
-setsockopt to receive timestamps:
-
- __u32 val = SOF_TIMESTAMPING_SOFTWARE |
- SOF_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_ID /* or any other flag */;
- err = setsockopt(fd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_TIMESTAMPING, &val, sizeof(val));
-
-
-1.4 Bytestream Timestamps
-
-The SO_TIMESTAMPING interface supports timestamping of bytes in a
-bytestream. Each request is interpreted as a request for when the
-entire contents of the buffer has passed a timestamping point. That
-is, for streams option SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SOFTWARE will record
-when all bytes have reached the device driver, regardless of how
-many packets the data has been converted into.
-
-In general, bytestreams have no natural delimiters and therefore
-correlating a timestamp with data is non-trivial. A range of bytes
-may be split across segments, any segments may be merged (possibly
-coalescing sections of previously segmented buffers associated with
-independent send() calls). Segments can be reordered and the same
-byte range can coexist in multiple segments for protocols that
-implement retransmissions.
-
-It is essential that all timestamps implement the same semantics,
-regardless of these possible transformations, as otherwise they are
-incomparable. Handling "rare" corner cases differently from the
-simple case (a 1:1 mapping from buffer to skb) is insufficient
-because performance debugging often needs to focus on such outliers.
-
-In practice, timestamps can be correlated with segments of a
-bytestream consistently, if both semantics of the timestamp and the
-timing of measurement are chosen correctly. This challenge is no
-different from deciding on a strategy for IP fragmentation. There, the
-definition is that only the first fragment is timestamped. For
-bytestreams, we chose that a timestamp is generated only when all
-bytes have passed a point. SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_ACK as defined is easy to
-implement and reason about. An implementation that has to take into
-account SACK would be more complex due to possible transmission holes
-and out of order arrival.
-
-On the host, TCP can also break the simple 1:1 mapping from buffer to
-skbuff as a result of Nagle, cork, autocork, segmentation and GSO. The
-implementation ensures correctness in all cases by tracking the
-individual last byte passed to send(), even if it is no longer the
-last byte after an skbuff extend or merge operation. It stores the
-relevant sequence number in skb_shinfo(skb)->tskey. Because an skbuff
-has only one such field, only one timestamp can be generated.
-
-In rare cases, a timestamp request can be missed if two requests are
-collapsed onto the same skb. A process can detect this situation by
-enabling SOF_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_ID and comparing the byte offset at
-send time with the value returned for each timestamp. It can prevent
-the situation by always flushing the TCP stack in between requests,
-for instance by enabling TCP_NODELAY and disabling TCP_CORK and
-autocork.
-
-These precautions ensure that the timestamp is generated only when all
-bytes have passed a timestamp point, assuming that the network stack
-itself does not reorder the segments. The stack indeed tries to avoid
-reordering. The one exception is under administrator control: it is
-possible to construct a packet scheduler configuration that delays
-segments from the same stream differently. Such a setup would be
-unusual.
-
-
-2 Data Interfaces
-
-Timestamps are read using the ancillary data feature of recvmsg().
-See `man 3 cmsg` for details of this interface. The socket manual
-page (`man 7 socket`) describes how timestamps generated with
-SO_TIMESTAMP and SO_TIMESTAMPNS records can be retrieved.
-
-
-2.1 SCM_TIMESTAMPING records
-
-These timestamps are returned in a control message with cmsg_level
-SOL_SOCKET, cmsg_type SCM_TIMESTAMPING, and payload of type
-
-For SO_TIMESTAMPING_OLD:
-
-struct scm_timestamping {
- struct timespec ts[3];
-};
-
-For SO_TIMESTAMPING_NEW:
-
-struct scm_timestamping64 {
- struct __kernel_timespec ts[3];
-
-Always use SO_TIMESTAMPING_NEW timestamp to always get timestamp in
-struct scm_timestamping64 format.
-
-SO_TIMESTAMPING_OLD returns incorrect timestamps after the year 2038
-on 32 bit machines.
-
-The structure can return up to three timestamps. This is a legacy
-feature. At least one field is non-zero at any time. Most timestamps
-are passed in ts[0]. Hardware timestamps are passed in ts[2].
-
-ts[1] used to hold hardware timestamps converted to system time.
-Instead, expose the hardware clock device on the NIC directly as
-a HW PTP clock source, to allow time conversion in userspace and
-optionally synchronize system time with a userspace PTP stack such
-as linuxptp. For the PTP clock API, see Documentation/driver-api/ptp.rst.
-
-Note that if the SO_TIMESTAMP or SO_TIMESTAMPNS option is enabled
-together with SO_TIMESTAMPING using SOF_TIMESTAMPING_SOFTWARE, a false
-software timestamp will be generated in the recvmsg() call and passed
-in ts[0] when a real software timestamp is missing. This happens also
-on hardware transmit timestamps.
-
-2.1.1 Transmit timestamps with MSG_ERRQUEUE
-
-For transmit timestamps the outgoing packet is looped back to the
-socket's error queue with the send timestamp(s) attached. A process
-receives the timestamps by calling recvmsg() with flag MSG_ERRQUEUE
-set and with a msg_control buffer sufficiently large to receive the
-relevant metadata structures. The recvmsg call returns the original
-outgoing data packet with two ancillary messages attached.
-
-A message of cm_level SOL_IP(V6) and cm_type IP(V6)_RECVERR
-embeds a struct sock_extended_err. This defines the error type. For
-timestamps, the ee_errno field is ENOMSG. The other ancillary message
-will have cm_level SOL_SOCKET and cm_type SCM_TIMESTAMPING. This
-embeds the struct scm_timestamping.
-
-
-2.1.1.2 Timestamp types
-
-The semantics of the three struct timespec are defined by field
-ee_info in the extended error structure. It contains a value of
-type SCM_TSTAMP_* to define the actual timestamp passed in
-scm_timestamping.
-
-The SCM_TSTAMP_* types are 1:1 matches to the SOF_TIMESTAMPING_*
-control fields discussed previously, with one exception. For legacy
-reasons, SCM_TSTAMP_SND is equal to zero and can be set for both
-SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_HARDWARE and SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SOFTWARE. It
-is the first if ts[2] is non-zero, the second otherwise, in which
-case the timestamp is stored in ts[0].
-
-
-2.1.1.3 Fragmentation
-
-Fragmentation of outgoing datagrams is rare, but is possible, e.g., by
-explicitly disabling PMTU discovery. If an outgoing packet is fragmented,
-then only the first fragment is timestamped and returned to the sending
-socket.
-
-
-2.1.1.4 Packet Payload
-
-The calling application is often not interested in receiving the whole
-packet payload that it passed to the stack originally: the socket
-error queue mechanism is just a method to piggyback the timestamp on.
-In this case, the application can choose to read datagrams with a
-smaller buffer, possibly even of length 0. The payload is truncated
-accordingly. Until the process calls recvmsg() on the error queue,
-however, the full packet is queued, taking up budget from SO_RCVBUF.
-
-
-2.1.1.5 Blocking Read
-
-Reading from the error queue is always a non-blocking operation. To
-block waiting on a timestamp, use poll or select. poll() will return
-POLLERR in pollfd.revents if any data is ready on the error queue.
-There is no need to pass this flag in pollfd.events. This flag is
-ignored on request. See also `man 2 poll`.
-
-
-2.1.2 Receive timestamps
-
-On reception, there is no reason to read from the socket error queue.
-The SCM_TIMESTAMPING ancillary data is sent along with the packet data
-on a normal recvmsg(). Since this is not a socket error, it is not
-accompanied by a message SOL_IP(V6)/IP(V6)_RECVERROR. In this case,
-the meaning of the three fields in struct scm_timestamping is
-implicitly defined. ts[0] holds a software timestamp if set, ts[1]
-is again deprecated and ts[2] holds a hardware timestamp if set.
-
-
-3. Hardware Timestamping configuration: SIOCSHWTSTAMP and SIOCGHWTSTAMP
-
-Hardware time stamping must also be initialized for each device driver
-that is expected to do hardware time stamping. The parameter is defined in
-include/uapi/linux/net_tstamp.h as:
-
-struct hwtstamp_config {
- int flags; /* no flags defined right now, must be zero */
- int tx_type; /* HWTSTAMP_TX_* */
- int rx_filter; /* HWTSTAMP_FILTER_* */
-};
-
-Desired behavior is passed into the kernel and to a specific device by
-calling ioctl(SIOCSHWTSTAMP) with a pointer to a struct ifreq whose
-ifr_data points to a struct hwtstamp_config. The tx_type and
-rx_filter are hints to the driver what it is expected to do. If
-the requested fine-grained filtering for incoming packets is not
-supported, the driver may time stamp more than just the requested types
-of packets.
-
-Drivers are free to use a more permissive configuration than the requested
-configuration. It is expected that drivers should only implement directly the
-most generic mode that can be supported. For example if the hardware can
-support HWTSTAMP_FILTER_V2_EVENT, then it should generally always upscale
-HWTSTAMP_FILTER_V2_L2_SYNC_MESSAGE, and so forth, as HWTSTAMP_FILTER_V2_EVENT
-is more generic (and more useful to applications).
-
-A driver which supports hardware time stamping shall update the struct
-with the actual, possibly more permissive configuration. If the
-requested packets cannot be time stamped, then nothing should be
-changed and ERANGE shall be returned (in contrast to EINVAL, which
-indicates that SIOCSHWTSTAMP is not supported at all).
-
-Only a processes with admin rights may change the configuration. User
-space is responsible to ensure that multiple processes don't interfere
-with each other and that the settings are reset.
-
-Any process can read the actual configuration by passing this
-structure to ioctl(SIOCGHWTSTAMP) in the same way. However, this has
-not been implemented in all drivers.
-
-/* possible values for hwtstamp_config->tx_type */
-enum {
- /*
- * no outgoing packet will need hardware time stamping;
- * should a packet arrive which asks for it, no hardware
- * time stamping will be done
- */
- HWTSTAMP_TX_OFF,
-
- /*
- * enables hardware time stamping for outgoing packets;
- * the sender of the packet decides which are to be
- * time stamped by setting SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SOFTWARE
- * before sending the packet
- */
- HWTSTAMP_TX_ON,
-};
-
-/* possible values for hwtstamp_config->rx_filter */
-enum {
- /* time stamp no incoming packet at all */
- HWTSTAMP_FILTER_NONE,
-
- /* time stamp any incoming packet */
- HWTSTAMP_FILTER_ALL,
-
- /* return value: time stamp all packets requested plus some others */
- HWTSTAMP_FILTER_SOME,
-
- /* PTP v1, UDP, any kind of event packet */
- HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V1_L4_EVENT,
-
- /* for the complete list of values, please check
- * the include file include/uapi/linux/net_tstamp.h
- */
-};
-
-3.1 Hardware Timestamping Implementation: Device Drivers
-
-A driver which supports hardware time stamping must support the
-SIOCSHWTSTAMP ioctl and update the supplied struct hwtstamp_config with
-the actual values as described in the section on SIOCSHWTSTAMP. It
-should also support SIOCGHWTSTAMP.
-
-Time stamps for received packets must be stored in the skb. To get a pointer
-to the shared time stamp structure of the skb call skb_hwtstamps(). Then
-set the time stamps in the structure:
-
-struct skb_shared_hwtstamps {
- /* hardware time stamp transformed into duration
- * since arbitrary point in time
- */
- ktime_t hwtstamp;
-};
-
-Time stamps for outgoing packets are to be generated as follows:
-- In hard_start_xmit(), check if (skb_shinfo(skb)->tx_flags & SKBTX_HW_TSTAMP)
- is set no-zero. If yes, then the driver is expected to do hardware time
- stamping.
-- If this is possible for the skb and requested, then declare
- that the driver is doing the time stamping by setting the flag
- SKBTX_IN_PROGRESS in skb_shinfo(skb)->tx_flags , e.g. with
-
- skb_shinfo(skb)->tx_flags |= SKBTX_IN_PROGRESS;
-
- You might want to keep a pointer to the associated skb for the next step
- and not free the skb. A driver not supporting hardware time stamping doesn't
- do that. A driver must never touch sk_buff::tstamp! It is used to store
- software generated time stamps by the network subsystem.
-- Driver should call skb_tx_timestamp() as close to passing sk_buff to hardware
- as possible. skb_tx_timestamp() provides a software time stamp if requested
- and hardware timestamping is not possible (SKBTX_IN_PROGRESS not set).
-- As soon as the driver has sent the packet and/or obtained a
- hardware time stamp for it, it passes the time stamp back by
- calling skb_hwtstamp_tx() with the original skb, the raw
- hardware time stamp. skb_hwtstamp_tx() clones the original skb and
- adds the timestamps, therefore the original skb has to be freed now.
- If obtaining the hardware time stamp somehow fails, then the driver
- should not fall back to software time stamping. The rationale is that
- this would occur at a later time in the processing pipeline than other
- software time stamping and therefore could lead to unexpected deltas
- between time stamps.