GitLab

The ability to read the PHC (Physical Hardware Clock) alongside
multiple system clocks is currently dependent on the specific
hardware architecture. This limitation restricts the use of
PTP_SYS_OFFSET_PRECISE to certain hardware configurations.

The generic soultion which would work across all architectures
is to read the PHC along with the latency to perform PHC-read as
offered by PTP_SYS_OFFSET_EXTENDED which provides pre and post
timestamps.  However, these timestamps are currently limited
to the CLOCK_REALTIME timebase. Since CLOCK_REALTIME is affected
by NTP (or similar time synchronization services), it can
experience significant jumps forward or backward. This hinders
the precise latency measurements that PTP_SYS_OFFSET_EXTENDED
is designed to provide.

This problem could be addressed by supporting MONOTONIC_RAW
timestamps within PTP_SYS_OFFSET_EXTENDED. Unlike CLOCK_REALTIME
or CLOCK_MONOTONIC, the MONOTONIC_RAW timebase is unaffected
by NTP adjustments.

This enhancement can be implemented by utilizing one of the three
reserved words within the PTP_SYS_OFFSET_EXTENDED struct to pass
the clock-id for timestamps.  The current behavior aligns with
clock-id for CLOCK_REALTIME timebase (value of 0), ensuring
backward compatibility of the UAPI.
Signed-off-by: Mahesh Bandewar <maheshb@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Vadim Fedorenko <vadfed@meta.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>