Understanding the Linux Kernel, 3rd Edition

Updating the Time and Date

User programs get the current time and date from the xtime variable. The kernel must periodically update this variable, so that its value is always reasonably accurate.

The update_times( ) function, which is invoked by the global timer interrupt handler, updates the value of the xtime variable as follows:

    void update_times(void)
    {
        unsigned long ticks;
        ticks = jiffies - wall_jiffies;
        if (ticks) {
            wall_jiffies += ticks;
            update_wall_time(ticks);
        }
        calc_load(ticks);
    }

We recall from the previous description of the timer interrupt handler that when the code of this function is executed, the xtime_lock seqlock has already been acquired for writing.

The wall_jiffies variable stores the time of the last update of the xtime variable. Observe that the value of wall_jiffies can be smaller than jiffies-1, since a few timer interrupts can be lost, for instance when interrupts remain disabled for a long period of time; in other words, the kernel does not necessarily update the xtime variable at every tick. However, no tick is definitively lost, and in the long run, xtime stores the correct system time. The check for lost timer interrupts is done in the mark_offset method of cur_timer; see the earlier section "Timekeeping Architecture in Uniprocessor Systems.”

The update_wall_time( ) function invokes the update_wall_time_one_tick( ) function ticks consecutive times; normally, each invocation adds 1,000,000 to the xtime.tv_nsec field. If the value of xtime.tv_nsec becomes ...