Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
sock: document timestamping via cmsg in Documentation
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
Update docs and add code snippet for using cmsg for timestamping.

Signed-off-by: Soheil Hassas Yeganeh <soheil@google.com>
Acked-by: Willem de Bruijn <willemb@google.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
  • Loading branch information
Soheil Hassas Yeganeh authored and David S. Miller committed Apr 4, 2016
1 parent c14ac94 commit fd91e12
Showing 1 changed file with 45 additions and 3 deletions.
48 changes: 45 additions & 3 deletions Documentation/networking/timestamping.txt
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -44,11 +44,17 @@ timeval of SO_TIMESTAMP (ms).
Supports multiple types of timestamp requests. As a result, this
socket option takes a bitmap of flags, not a boolean. In

err = setsockopt(fd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_TIMESTAMPING, (void *) val, &val);
err = setsockopt(fd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_TIMESTAMPING, (void *) val,
sizeof(val));

val is an integer with any of the following bits set. Setting other
bit returns EINVAL and does not change the current state.

The socket option configures timestamp generation for individual
sk_buffs (1.3.1), timestamp reporting to the socket's error
queue (1.3.2) and options (1.3.3). Timestamp generation can also
be enabled for individual sendmsg calls using cmsg (1.3.4).


1.3.1 Timestamp Generation

Expand All @@ -71,13 +77,16 @@ SOF_TIMESTAMPING_RX_SOFTWARE:
kernel receive stack.

SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_HARDWARE:
Request tx timestamps generated by the network adapter.
Request tx timestamps generated by the network adapter. This flag
can be enabled via both socket options and control messages.

SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SOFTWARE:
Request tx timestamps when data leaves the kernel. These timestamps
are generated in the device driver as close as possible, but always
prior to, passing the packet to the network interface. Hence, they
require driver support and may not be available for all devices.
This flag can be enabled via both socket options and control messages.


SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SCHED:
Request tx timestamps prior to entering the packet scheduler. Kernel
Expand All @@ -90,7 +99,8 @@ SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SCHED:
machines with virtual devices where a transmitted packet travels
through multiple devices and, hence, multiple packet schedulers,
a timestamp is generated at each layer. This allows for fine
grained measurement of queuing delay.
grained measurement of queuing delay. This flag can be enabled
via both socket options and control messages.

SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_ACK:
Request tx timestamps when all data in the send buffer has been
Expand All @@ -99,6 +109,7 @@ SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_ACK:
over-report measurement, because the timestamp is generated when all
data up to and including the buffer at send() was acknowledged: the
cumulative acknowledgment. The mechanism ignores SACK and FACK.
This flag can be enabled via both socket options and control messages.


1.3.2 Timestamp Reporting
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -183,6 +194,37 @@ having access to the contents of the original packet, so cannot be
combined with SOF_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_TSONLY.


1.3.4. Enabling timestamps via control messages

In addition to socket options, timestamp generation can be requested
per write via cmsg, only for SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_* (see Section 1.3.1).
Using this feature, applications can sample timestamps per sendmsg()
without paying the overhead of enabling and disabling timestamps via
setsockopt:

struct msghdr *msg;
...
cmsg = CMSG_FIRSTHDR(msg);
cmsg->cmsg_level = SOL_SOCKET;
cmsg->cmsg_type = SO_TIMESTAMPING;
cmsg->cmsg_len = CMSG_LEN(sizeof(__u32));
*((__u32 *) CMSG_DATA(cmsg)) = SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SCHED |
SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SOFTWARE |
SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_ACK;
err = sendmsg(fd, msg, 0);

The SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_* flags set via cmsg will override
the SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_* flags set via setsockopt.

Moreover, applications must still enable timestamp reporting via
setsockopt to receive timestamps:

__u32 val = SOF_TIMESTAMPING_SOFTWARE |
SOF_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_ID /* or any other flag */;
err = setsockopt(fd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_TIMESTAMPING, (void *) val,
sizeof(val));


1.4 Bytestream Timestamps

The SO_TIMESTAMPING interface supports timestamping of bytes in a
Expand Down

0 comments on commit fd91e12

Please sign in to comment.