linux.git/kernel/time/timekeeping.c, branch v6.18.21

timekeeping: Fix timex status validation for auxiliary clocks

2026-03-12T11:09:57+00:00

[ Upstream commit e48a869957a70cc39b4090cd27c36a86f8db9b92 ]

The timekeeping_validate_timex() function validates the timex status
of an auxiliary system clock even when the status is not to be changed,
which causes unexpected errors for applications that make read-only
clock_adjtime() calls, or set some other timex fields, but without
clearing the status field.

Do the AUX-specific status validation only when the modes field contains
ADJ_STATUS, i.e. the application is actually trying to change the
status. This makes the AUX-specific clock_adjtime() behavior consistent
with CLOCK_REALTIME.

Fixes: 4eca49d0b621 ("timekeeping: Prepare do_adtimex() for auxiliary clocks")
Signed-off-by: Miroslav Lichvar 
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner 
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260225085231.276751-1-mlichvar@redhat.com
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

timekeeping: Adjust the leap state for the correct auxiliary timekeeper

2026-01-30T09:32:15+00:00

commit e806f7dde8ba28bc72a7a0898589cac79f6362ac upstream.

When __do_ajdtimex() was introduced to handle adjtimex for any
timekeeper, this reference to tk_core was not updated. When called on an
auxiliary timekeeper, the core timekeeper would be updated incorrectly.

This gets caught by the lock debugging diagnostics because the
timekeepers sequence lock gets written to without holding its
associated spinlock:

WARNING: include/linux/seqlock.h:226 at __do_adjtimex+0x394/0x3b0, CPU#2: test/125
aux_clock_adj (kernel/time/timekeeping.c:2979)
__do_sys_clock_adjtime (kernel/time/posix-timers.c:1161 kernel/time/posix-timers.c:1173)
do_syscall_64 (arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:63 (discriminator 1) arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:94 (discriminator 1))
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe (arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:131)

Update the correct auxiliary timekeeper.

Fixes: 775f71ebedd3 ("timekeeping: Make do_adjtimex() reusable")
Fixes: ecf3e7030491 ("timekeeping: Provide adjtimex() for auxiliary clocks")
Signed-off-by: Thomas Weißschuh 
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner 
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260120-timekeeper-auxclock-leapstate-v1-1-5b358c6b3cfd@linutronix.de
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

timekeeping: Fix error code in tk_aux_sysfs_init()

2025-11-25T16:52:24+00:00

If kobject_create_and_add() fails on the first iteration, then the error
code is set to -ENOMEM which is correct. But if it fails in subsequent
iterations then "ret" is zero, which means success, but it should be
-ENOMEM.

Set the error code to -ENOMEM correctly.

Fixes: 7b5ab04f035f ("timekeeping: Fix resource leak in tk_aux_sysfs_init() error paths")
Signed-off-by: Dan Carpenter 
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner 
Reviewed-by: Malaya Kumar Rout 
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/aSW1R8q5zoY_DgQE@stanley.mountain

timekeeping: Fix resource leak in tk_aux_sysfs_init() error paths

2025-11-20T15:40:48+00:00

tk_aux_sysfs_init() returns immediately on error during the auxiliary clock
initialization loop without cleaning up previously allocated kobjects and
sysfs groups.

If kobject_create_and_add() or sysfs_create_group() fails during loop
iteration, the parent kobjects (tko and auxo) and any previously created
child kobjects are leaked.

Fix this by adding proper error handling with goto labels to ensure all
allocated resources are cleaned up on failure. kobject_put() on the
parent kobjects will handle cleanup of their children.

Fixes: 7b95663a3d96 ("timekeeping: Provide interface to control auxiliary clocks")
Signed-off-by: Malaya Kumar Rout 
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner 
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20251120150213.246777-1-mrout@redhat.com

timekeeping: Fix aux clocks sysfs initialization loop bound

2025-10-20T17:56:12+00:00

The loop in tk_aux_sysfs_init() uses `i <= MAX_AUX_CLOCKS` as the
termination condition, which results in 9 iterations (i=0 to 8) when
MAX_AUX_CLOCKS is defined as 8. However, the kernel is designed to support
only up to 8 auxiliary clocks.

This off-by-one error causes the creation of a 9th sysfs entry that exceeds
the intended auxiliary clock range.

Fix the loop bound to use `i < MAX_AUX_CLOCKS` to ensure exactly 8
auxiliary clock entries are created, matching the design specification.

Fixes: 7b95663a3d96 ("timekeeping: Provide interface to control auxiliary clocks")
Signed-off-by: Haofeng Li 
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner 
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/tencent_2376993D9FC06A3616A4F981B3DE1C599607@qq.com

vdso/vsyscall: Avoid slow division loop in auxiliary clock update

2025-09-03T09:55:11+00:00

The call to __iter_div_u64_rem() in vdso_time_update_aux() is a wrapper
around subtraction. It cannot be used to divide large numbers, as that
introduces long, computationally expensive delays.  A regular u64 division
is also not possible in the timekeeper update path as it can be too slow.

Instead of splitting the ktime_t offset into into second and subsecond
components during the timekeeper update fast-path, do it together with the
adjustment of tk->offs_aux in the slow-path. Equivalent to the handling of
offs_boot and monotonic_to_boot.

Reuse the storage of monotonic_to_boot for the new field, as it is not used
by auxiliary timekeepers.

Fixes: 380b84e168e5 ("vdso/vsyscall: Update auxiliary clock data in the datapage")
Reported-by: Miroslav Lichvar 
Signed-off-by: Thomas Weißschuh 
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner 
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250825-vdso-auxclock-division-v1-1-a1d32a16a313@linutronix.de
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/aKwsNNWsHJg8IKzj@localhost/

Merge tag 'timers-ptp-2025-07-27' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip

2025-07-29T21:12:52+00:00

Pull timekeeping and VDSO updates from Thomas Gleixner:

 - Introduce support for auxiliary timekeepers

   PTP clocks can be disconnected from the universal CLOCK_TAI reality
   for various reasons including regularatory requirements for
   functional safety redundancy.

   The kernel so far only supports a single notion of time, which means
   that all clocks are correlated in frequency and only differ by offset
   to each other.

   Access to non-correlated PTP clocks has been available so far only
   through the file descriptor based "POSIX clock IDs", which are
   subject to locking and have to go all the way out to the hardware.

   The access is not only horribly slow, as it has to go all the way out
   to the NIC/PTP hardware, but that also prevents the kernel to read
   the time of such clocks e.g. from the network stack, where it is
   required for TSN networking both on the transmit and receive side
   unless the hardware provides offloading.

   The auxiliary clocks provide a mechanism to support arbitrary clocks
   which are not correlated to the system clock. This is not restricted
   to the PTP use case on purpose as there is no kernel side association
   of these clocks to a particular PTP device because that's a pure user
   space configuration decision. Having them independent allows to
   utilize them for other purposes and also enables them to be tested
   without hardware dependencies.

   To avoid pointless overhead these clocks have to be enabled
   individualy via a new sysfs interface to reduce the overhead to a
   single compare in the hotpath if they are enabled at the Kconfig
   level at all.

   These clocks utilize the existing timekeeping/NTP infrastructures,
   which has been made possible over the recent releases by incrementaly
   converting these infrastructures over from a single static instance
   to a multi-instance pointer based implementation without any
   performance regression reported.

   The auxiliary clocks provide the same "emulation" of a "correct"
   clock as the existing CLOCK_* variants do with an independent
   instance of data and provide the same steering mechanism through the
   existing sys_clock_adjtime() interface, which has been confirmed to
   work by the chronyd(8) maintainer.

   That allows to provide lockless kernel internal and VDSO support so
   that applications and kernel internal functionalities can access
   these clocks without restrictions and at the same performance as the
   existing system clocks.

 - Avoid double notifications in the adjtimex() syscall. Not a big
   issue, but a trivial to avoid latency source.

* tag 'timers-ptp-2025-07-27' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip: (39 commits)
  vdso/gettimeofday: Add support for auxiliary clocks
  vdso/vsyscall: Update auxiliary clock data in the datapage
  vdso: Introduce aux_clock_resolution_ns()
  vdso/gettimeofday: Introduce vdso_get_timestamp()
  vdso/gettimeofday: Introduce vdso_set_timespec()
  vdso/gettimeofday: Introduce vdso_clockid_valid()
  vdso/gettimeofday: Return bool from clock_gettime() helpers
  vdso/gettimeofday: Return bool from clock_getres() helpers
  vdso/helpers: Add helpers for seqlocks of single vdso_clock
  vdso/vsyscall: Split up __arch_update_vsyscall() into __arch_update_vdso_clock()
  vdso/vsyscall: Introduce a helper to fill clock configurations
  timekeeping: Remove the temporary CLOCK_AUX workaround
  timekeeping: Provide ktime_get_clock_ts64()
  timekeeping: Provide interface to control auxiliary clocks
  timekeeping: Provide update for auxiliary timekeepers
  timekeeping: Provide adjtimex() for auxiliary clocks
  timekeeping: Prepare do_adtimex() for auxiliary clocks
  timekeeping: Make do_adjtimex() reusable
  timekeeping: Add auxiliary clock support to __timekeeping_inject_offset()
  timekeeping: Make timekeeping_inject_offset() reusable
  ...

timekeeping: Zero initialize system_counterval when querying time from phc drivers

2025-07-22T12:25:21+00:00

Most drivers only populate the fields cycles and cs_id of system_counterval
in their get_time_fn() callback for get_device_system_crosststamp(), unless
they explicitly provide nanosecond values.

When the use_nsecs field was added to struct system_counterval, most
drivers did not care.  Clock sources other than CSID_GENERIC could then get
converted in convert_base_to_cs() based on an uninitialized use_nsecs field,
which usually results in -EINVAL during the following range check.

Pass in a fully zero initialized system_counterval_t to cure that.

Fixes: 6b2e29977518 ("timekeeping: Provide infrastructure for converting to/from a base clock")
Signed-off-by: Markus Blöchl 
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner 
Acked-by: John Stultz 
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250720-timekeeping_uninit_crossts-v2-1-f513c885b7c2@blochl.de

vdso/vsyscall: Update auxiliary clock data in the datapage

2025-07-18T11:45:33+00:00

Expose the auxiliary clock data so it can be read from the vDSO.

Architectures not using the generic vDSO time framework,
namely SPARC64, are not supported.

Signed-off-by: Thomas Weißschuh 
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner 
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250701-vdso-auxclock-v1-11-df7d9f87b9b8@linutronix.de

vdso: Introduce aux_clock_resolution_ns()

2025-07-18T11:45:32+00:00

Move the constant resolution to a shared header,
so the vDSO can use it and return it without going through a syscall.

Signed-off-by: Thomas Weißschuh 
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner 
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250701-vdso-auxclock-v1-10-df7d9f87b9b8@linutronix.de