Re: [PATCH v4 11/11] KVM: selftests: Enable tunning of err_margin_us in arch timer test

From: Marc Zyngier <maz@kernel.org>
To: Haibo Xu <xiaobo55x@gmail.com>
Cc: Haibo Xu <haibo1.xu@intel.com>,
	ajones@ventanamicro.com, Paul Walmsley <paul.walmsley@sifive.com>,
	Palmer Dabbelt <palmer@dabbelt.com>,
	Albert Ou <aou@eecs.berkeley.edu>,
	Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>,
	Shuah Khan <shuah@kernel.org>,
	Oliver Upton <oliver.upton@linux.dev>,
	James Morse <james.morse@arm.com>,
	Suzuki K Poulose <suzuki.poulose@arm.com>,
	Zenghui Yu <yuzenghui@huawei.com>,
	Anup Patel <anup@brainfault.org>,
	Atish Patra <atishp@atishpatra.org>, Guo Ren <guoren@kernel.org>,
	Mayuresh Chitale <mchitale@ventanamicro.com>,
	Greentime Hu <greentime.hu@sifive.com>,
	wchen <waylingii@gmail.com>,
	Conor Dooley <conor.dooley@microchip.com>,
	Heiko Stuebner <heiko@sntech.de>,
	Minda Chen <minda.chen@starfivetech.com>,
	Samuel Holland <samuel@sholland.org>,
	Jisheng Zhang <jszhang@kernel.org>,
	Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>,
	Peter Xu <peterx@redhat.com>, Like Xu <likexu@tencent.com>,
	Vipin Sharma <vipinsh@google.com>,
	Maciej Wieczor-Retman <maciej.wieczor-retman@intel.com>,
	Aaron Lewis <aaronlewis@google.com>,
	Thomas Huth <thuth@redhat.com>,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-riscv@lists.infradead.org,
	kvm@vger.kernel.org, linux-kselftest@vger.kernel.org,
	linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org, kvmarm@lists.linux.dev,
	kvm-riscv@lists.infradead.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 11/11] KVM: selftests: Enable tunning of err_margin_us in arch timer test
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2023 09:00:48 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <f98879dc24f948f7a8a7b5374a32bc04@kernel.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAJve8onc0WN5g98aOVBmJx15wFBAqfBKJ+ufoLY+oqYyVL+=3A@mail.gmail.com>

On 2023-12-20 06:50, Haibo Xu wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 20, 2023 at 2:22 AM Marc Zyngier <maz@kernel.org> wrote:
>> 
>> On Tue, 12 Dec 2023 09:31:20 +0000,
>> Haibo Xu <haibo1.xu@intel.com> wrote:
>> > > @@ -216,6 +221,9 @@ static bool parse_args(int argc, char *argv[])
>> >               case 'm':
>> >                       test_args.migration_freq_ms = atoi_non_negative("Frequency", optarg);
>> >                       break;
>> > +             case 'e':
>> > +                     test_args.timer_err_margin_us = atoi_non_negative("Error Margin", optarg);
>> > +                     break;
>> 
>> So your error margin is always unsigned...
>> 
> 
> The error margin was supposed to be a non-negative [0, INT_MAX].
> (May be need to define a Max for the input, instead of INT_MAX)
> 
>> >               case 'o':
>> >                       test_args.counter_offset = strtol(optarg, NULL, 0);
>> >                       test_args.reserved = 0;
>> > diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/kvm/include/timer_test.h b/tools/testing/selftests/kvm/include/timer_test.h
>> > index 968257b893a7..b1d405e7157d 100644
>> > --- a/tools/testing/selftests/kvm/include/timer_test.h
>> > +++ b/tools/testing/selftests/kvm/include/timer_test.h
>> > @@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ struct test_args {
>> >       int nr_iter;
>> >       int timer_period_ms;
>> >       int migration_freq_ms;
>> > +     int timer_err_margin_us;
>> 
>> ... except that you are storing it as a signed value. Some consistency
>> wouldn't hurt, really, and would avoid issues when passing large
>> values.
>> 
> 
> Yes, it's more proper to use an unsigned int for the non-negative error 
> margin.
> Storing as signed here is just to keep the type consistent with that
> of timer_period_ms
> since there will be '+' operation in other places.
> 
>         tools/testing/selftests/kvm/aarch64/arch_timer.c
>         /* Setup a timeout for the interrupt to arrive */
>          udelay(msecs_to_usecs(test_args.timer_period_ms) +
>              test_args.timer_err_margin_us);

But that's exactly why using a signed quantity is wrong.
What does it mean to have a huge *negative* margin?

I don't see how you can justify this.

         M.
-- 
Jazz is not dead. It just smells funny...

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