Hi, After some bisecting, I found that commit 05a0302c3548 ("rtc: mc146818: Prevent reading garbage", this patch, introduced since v5.11-rc1) makes my VM hang at boot. Before this commit, I got this (and didn't notice) at every boot: rtc_cmos rtc_cmos: registered as rtc0 rtc_cmos rtc_cmos: hctosys: unable to read the hardware clock rtc_cmos rtc_cmos: alarms up to one day, 114 bytes nvram I notice that this patch creates infinite loops, which my VM falls into (cf. below). I didn't succeed to properly fix this without a revert. I tried to set a maximum number of jumps, but I got pvqspinlock warnings. Regards, Mickaël On 06/12/2020 22:46, Thomas Gleixner wrote: > The MC146818 driver is prone to read garbage from the RTC. There are > several issues all related to the update cycle of the MC146818. The chip > increments seconds obviously once per second and indicates that by a bit in > a register. The bit goes high 244us before the actual update starts. During > the update the readout of the time values is undefined. > > The code just checks whether the update in progress bit (UIP) is set before > reading the clock. If it's set it waits arbitrary 20ms before retrying, > which is ample because the maximum update time is ~2ms. > > But this check does not guarantee that the UIP bit goes high and the actual > update happens during the readout. So the following can happen > > 0.997 UIP = False > -> Interrupt/NMI/preemption > 0.998 UIP -> True > 0.999 Readout <- Undefined > > To prevent this rework the code so it checks UIP before and after the > readout and if set after the readout try again. > > But that's not enough to cover the following: > > 0.997 UIP = False > Readout seconds > -> NMI (or vCPU scheduled out) > 0.998 UIP -> True > update completes > UIP -> False > 1.000 Readout minutes,.... > UIP check succeeds > > That can make the readout wrong up to 59 seconds. > > To prevent this, read the seconds value before the first UIP check, > validate it after checking UIP and after reading out the rest. > > It's amazing that the original i386 code had this actually correct and > the generic implementation of the MC146818 driver got it wrong in 2002 and > it stayed that way until today. > > Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > --- > drivers/rtc/rtc-mc146818-lib.c | 64 ++++++++++++++++++++++++----------------- > 1 file changed, 39 insertions(+), 25 deletions(-) > > --- a/drivers/rtc/rtc-mc146818-lib.c > +++ b/drivers/rtc/rtc-mc146818-lib.c > @@ -8,41 +8,41 @@ > #include <linux/acpi.h> > #endif > > -/* > - * Returns true if a clock update is in progress > - */ > -static inline unsigned char mc146818_is_updating(void) > -{ > - unsigned char uip; > - unsigned long flags; > - > - spin_lock_irqsave(&rtc_lock, flags); > - uip = (CMOS_READ(RTC_FREQ_SELECT) & RTC_UIP); > - spin_unlock_irqrestore(&rtc_lock, flags); > - return uip; > -} > - > unsigned int mc146818_get_time(struct rtc_time *time) > { > unsigned char ctrl; > unsigned long flags; > unsigned char century = 0; > + bool retry; > > #ifdef CONFIG_MACH_DECSTATION > unsigned int real_year; > #endif > > +again: > + spin_lock_irqsave(&rtc_lock, flags); > /* > - * read RTC once any update in progress is done. The update > - * can take just over 2ms. We wait 20ms. There is no need to > - * to poll-wait (up to 1s - eeccch) for the falling edge of RTC_UIP. > - * If you need to know *exactly* when a second has started, enable > - * periodic update complete interrupts, (via ioctl) and then > - * immediately read /dev/rtc which will block until you get the IRQ. > - * Once the read clears, read the RTC time (again via ioctl). Easy. > + * Check whether there is an update in progress during which the > + * readout is unspecified. The maximum update time is ~2ms. Poll > + * every msec for completion. > + * > + * Store the second value before checking UIP so a long lasting NMI > + * which happens to hit after the UIP check cannot make an update > + * cycle invisible. > */ > - if (mc146818_is_updating()) > - mdelay(20); > + time->tm_sec = CMOS_READ(RTC_SECONDS); > + > + if (CMOS_READ(RTC_FREQ_SELECT) & RTC_UIP) { > + spin_unlock_irqrestore(&rtc_lock, flags); > + mdelay(1); My VM loops here. time->tm_sec is always 255. > + goto again; > + } > + > + /* Revalidate the above readout */ > + if (time->tm_sec != CMOS_READ(RTC_SECONDS)) { > + spin_unlock_irqrestore(&rtc_lock, flags); > + goto again; > + } > > /* > * Only the values that we read from the RTC are set. We leave > @@ -50,8 +50,6 @@ unsigned int mc146818_get_time(struct rt > * RTC has RTC_DAY_OF_WEEK, we ignore it, as it is only updated > * by the RTC when initially set to a non-zero value. > */ > - spin_lock_irqsave(&rtc_lock, flags); > - time->tm_sec = CMOS_READ(RTC_SECONDS); > time->tm_min = CMOS_READ(RTC_MINUTES); > time->tm_hour = CMOS_READ(RTC_HOURS); > time->tm_mday = CMOS_READ(RTC_DAY_OF_MONTH); > @@ -66,8 +64,24 @@ unsigned int mc146818_get_time(struct rt > century = CMOS_READ(acpi_gbl_FADT.century); > #endif > ctrl = CMOS_READ(RTC_CONTROL); > + /* > + * Check for the UIP bit again. If it is set now then > + * the above values may contain garbage. > + */ > + retry = CMOS_READ(RTC_FREQ_SELECT) & RTC_UIP; > + /* > + * A NMI might have interrupted the above sequence so check whether > + * the seconds value has changed which indicates that the NMI took > + * longer than the UIP bit was set. Unlikely, but possible and > + * there is also virt... > + */ > + retry |= time->tm_sec != CMOS_READ(RTC_SECONDS); > + > spin_unlock_irqrestore(&rtc_lock, flags); > > + if (retry) > + goto again; > + > if (!(ctrl & RTC_DM_BINARY) || RTC_ALWAYS_BCD) > { > time->tm_sec = bcd2bin(time->tm_sec); > >