Impact: Changes timebase calibration on Vmware.
Use the synthetic TSC_RELIABLE bit to workaround virtualization anomalies.
Virtual TSCs can be kept nearly in sync, but because the virtual TSC
offset is set by software, it's not perfect. So, the TSC
synchronization test can fail. Even then the TSC can be used as a
clocksource since the VMware platform exports a reliable TSC to the
guest for timekeeping purposes. Use this bit to check if we need to
skip the TSC sync checks.
Along with this also set the CONSTANT_TSC bit when on VMware, since we
still want to use TSC as clocksource on VM running over hardware which
has unsynchronized TSC's (opteron's), since the hypervisor will take
care of providing consistent TSC to the guest.
Signed-off-by: Alok N Kataria <akataria@vmware.com>
Signed-off-by: Dan Hecht <dhecht@vmware.com>
Signed-off-by: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
Impact: Changes timebase calibration on Vmware.
v3->v2 : Abstract the hypervisor detection and feature (tsc_freq) request
behind a hypervisor.c file
v2->v1 : Add a x86_hyper_vendor field to the cpuinfo_x86 structure.
This avoids multiple calls to the hypervisor detection function.
This patch adds function to detect if we are running under VMware.
The current way to check if we are on VMware is following,
# check if "hypervisor present bit" is set, if so read the 0x40000000
cpuid leaf and check for "VMwareVMware" signature.
# if the above fails, check the DMI vendors name for "VMware" string
if we find one we query the VMware hypervisor port to check if we are
under VMware.
The DMI + "VMware hypervisor port check" is needed for older VMware products,
which don't implement the hypervisor signature cpuid leaf.
Also note that since we are checking for the DMI signature the hypervisor
port should never be accessed on native hardware.
This patch also adds a hypervisor_get_tsc_freq function, instead of
calibrating the frequency which can be error prone in virtualized
environment, we ask the hypervisor for it. We get the frequency from
the hypervisor by accessing the hypervisor port if we are running on VMware.
Other hypervisors too can add code to the generic routine to get frequency on
their platform.
Signed-off-by: Alok N Kataria <akataria@vmware.com>
Signed-off-by: Dan Hecht <dhecht@vmware.com>
Signed-off-by: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
