[PATCH v2] m68k/mac: Improve clocksource driver commentary

[PATCH v2] m68k/mac: Improve clocksource driver commentary

[Finn Thain]

qemu-system-m68k -M q800 has an old bug that causes the kernel to
occasionally complain about a soft lockup:

    watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 5107s!

There isn't any actual lockup. The via1 clocksource produced a large
jump in jiffies, causing the watchdog to detect a stale timestamp.

The 32-bit clocksource counter runs at 783360 Hz and its period is
about 5482 seconds. Applying the "nanosecond" approximation used in
get_timestamp() in kernel/watchdog.c then yields the duration reported
in the log message above (always 5107 or 5108 in my tests):

0xffffffff / VIA_CLOCK_FREQ * 10**9 / 2**30 = 5106.209 seconds

It is notoriously difficult to correctly emulate a MOS6522 VIA chip. So
it seems wise to document the VIA clocksource driver better, especially
those hardware behaviours which the kernel relies upon.

Cc: Joshua Thompson <funaho@jurai.org>
Signed-off-by: Finn Thain <fthain@linux-m68k.org>
---
Changed since v1:
 - The letters A through E could be mistaken for hex digits so number the
   states using roman numerals instead.
---
 arch/m68k/mac/via.c | 16 ++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+)

diff --git a/arch/m68k/mac/via.c b/arch/m68k/mac/via.c
index 9320d71ba8e9..5f77de8a7767 100644
--- a/arch/m68k/mac/via.c
+++ b/arch/m68k/mac/via.c
@@ -622,6 +622,22 @@ static u64 mac_read_clk(struct clocksource *cs)
 	 * These problems are avoided by ignoring the low byte. Clock accuracy
 	 * is 256 times worse (error can reach 0.327 ms) but CPU overhead is
 	 * reduced by avoiding slow VIA register accesses.
+	 *
+	 * The VIA timer counter observably decrements to 0xFFFF before the
+	 * counter reload interrupt gets raised. That complicates things a bit.
+	 *
+	 * State | vT1CH      | VIA_TIMER_1_INT | inference drawn
+	 * ------+------------+-----------------+-----------------------------
+	 * i     | FE thru 00 | false           | counter is decrementing
+	 * ii    | FF         | false           | counter wrapped
+	 * iii   | FF         | true            | wrapped, interrupt raised
+	 * iv    | FF         | false           | wrapped, interrupt handled
+	 * v     | FE thru 00 | true            | wrapped, interrupt unhandled
+	 *
+	 * State iv is never observed because handling the interrupt involves
+	 * a 6522 register access and every access consumes a "phi 2" clock
+	 * cycle. So 0xFF implies either state ii or state iii, depending on
+	 * the value of the VIA_TIMER_1_INT bit.
 	 */
 
 	local_irq_save(flags);
-- 
2.49.0

Re: [PATCH v2] m68k/mac: Improve clocksource driver commentary

[Geert Uytterhoeven]

On Tue, 24 Jun 2025 at 06:36, Finn Thain <fthain@linux-m68k.org> wrote:
> qemu-system-m68k -M q800 has an old bug that causes the kernel to
> occasionally complain about a soft lockup:
>
>     watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 5107s!
>
> There isn't any actual lockup. The via1 clocksource produced a large
> jump in jiffies, causing the watchdog to detect a stale timestamp.
>
> The 32-bit clocksource counter runs at 783360 Hz and its period is
> about 5482 seconds. Applying the "nanosecond" approximation used in
> get_timestamp() in kernel/watchdog.c then yields the duration reported
> in the log message above (always 5107 or 5108 in my tests):
>
> 0xffffffff / VIA_CLOCK_FREQ * 10**9 / 2**30 = 5106.209 seconds
>
> It is notoriously difficult to correctly emulate a MOS6522 VIA chip. So
> it seems wise to document the VIA clocksource driver better, especially
> those hardware behaviours which the kernel relies upon.
>
> Cc: Joshua Thompson <funaho@jurai.org>
> Signed-off-by: Finn Thain <fthain@linux-m68k.org>
> ---
> Changed since v1:
>  - The letters A through E could be mistaken for hex digits so number the
>    states using roman numerals instead.

LGTM, so
Reviewed-by: Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org>
i.e. will queue in the m68k tree for v6.17.

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

                        Geert

-- 
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
                                -- Linus Torvalds