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Diffstat (limited to 'kernel/Documentation/ptp/ptp.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | kernel/Documentation/ptp/ptp.txt | 89 |
1 files changed, 89 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/kernel/Documentation/ptp/ptp.txt b/kernel/Documentation/ptp/ptp.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..ae8fef86b --- /dev/null +++ b/kernel/Documentation/ptp/ptp.txt @@ -0,0 +1,89 @@ + +* PTP hardware clock infrastructure for Linux + + This patch set introduces support for IEEE 1588 PTP clocks in + Linux. Together with the SO_TIMESTAMPING socket options, this + presents a standardized method for developing PTP user space + programs, synchronizing Linux with external clocks, and using the + ancillary features of PTP hardware clocks. + + A new class driver exports a kernel interface for specific clock + drivers and a user space interface. The infrastructure supports a + complete set of PTP hardware clock functionality. + + + Basic clock operations + - Set time + - Get time + - Shift the clock by a given offset atomically + - Adjust clock frequency + + + Ancillary clock features + - One short or periodic alarms, with signal delivery to user program + - Time stamp external events + - Period output signals configurable from user space + - Synchronization of the Linux system time via the PPS subsystem + +** PTP hardware clock kernel API + + A PTP clock driver registers itself with the class driver. The + class driver handles all of the dealings with user space. The + author of a clock driver need only implement the details of + programming the clock hardware. The clock driver notifies the class + driver of asynchronous events (alarms and external time stamps) via + a simple message passing interface. + + The class driver supports multiple PTP clock drivers. In normal use + cases, only one PTP clock is needed. However, for testing and + development, it can be useful to have more than one clock in a + single system, in order to allow performance comparisons. + +** PTP hardware clock user space API + + The class driver also creates a character device for each + registered clock. User space can use an open file descriptor from + the character device as a POSIX clock id and may call + clock_gettime, clock_settime, and clock_adjtime. These calls + implement the basic clock operations. + + User space programs may control the clock using standardized + ioctls. A program may query, enable, configure, and disable the + ancillary clock features. User space can receive time stamped + events via blocking read() and poll(). One shot and periodic + signals may be configured via the POSIX timer_settime() system + call. + +** Writing clock drivers + + Clock drivers include include/linux/ptp_clock_kernel.h and register + themselves by presenting a 'struct ptp_clock_info' to the + registration method. Clock drivers must implement all of the + functions in the interface. If a clock does not offer a particular + ancillary feature, then the driver should just return -EOPNOTSUPP + from those functions. + + Drivers must ensure that all of the methods in interface are + reentrant. Since most hardware implementations treat the time value + as a 64 bit integer accessed as two 32 bit registers, drivers + should use spin_lock_irqsave/spin_unlock_irqrestore to protect + against concurrent access. This locking cannot be accomplished in + class driver, since the lock may also be needed by the clock + driver's interrupt service routine. + +** Supported hardware + + + Freescale eTSEC gianfar + - 2 Time stamp external triggers, programmable polarity (opt. interrupt) + - 2 Alarm registers (optional interrupt) + - 3 Periodic signals (optional interrupt) + + + National DP83640 + - 6 GPIOs programmable as inputs or outputs + - 6 GPIOs with dedicated functions (LED/JTAG/clock) can also be + used as general inputs or outputs + - GPIO inputs can time stamp external triggers + - GPIO outputs can produce periodic signals + - 1 interrupt pin + + + Intel IXP465 + - Auxiliary Slave/Master Mode Snapshot (optional interrupt) + - Target Time (optional interrupt) |