Re: [PATCH v1 0/5] target/arm/kvm: Provide an option to adjust virtual time

[Peter Maydell]

On Wed, 16 Oct 2019 at 15:34, Andrew Jones <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> v2:
>  - move from RFC status to v1
>  - put kvm_arm_vm_state_change() in kvm.c to share among kvm32.c and kvm64.c
>  - add r-b's from Richard
>
>
> This series is inspired by a series[1] posted by Bijan Mottahedeh about
> a year ago.  The problem described in the cover letter of [1] is easily
> reproducible and some users would like to have the option to avoid it.
> However the solution, which is to adjust the virtual counter offset each
> time the VM transitions to the running state, introduces a different
> problem, which is that the virtual and physical counters diverge.  As
> described in the cover letter of [1] this divergence is easily observed
> when comparing the output of `date` and `hwclock` after suspending the
> guest, waiting a while, and then resuming it.  Because this different
> problem may actually be worse for some users, unlike [1], the series
> posted here makes the virtual counter offset adjustment optional and not
> even enabled by default.  Besides the adjustment being optional, this
> series approaches the needed changes differently to apply them in more
> appropriate locations.  Finally, unlike [1], this series doesn't attempt
> to measure "pause time" itself.  Simply using QEMU_CLOCK_VIRTUAL, which
> only ticks when the VM is not stopped, is sufficient.

So I guess my overall question is "what is the x86 solution to
this problem, and why is this all arm-specific?" It would also
be helpful to know how it fits into all the other proposals regarding
time in VMs.

thanks
-- PMM