1.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 2 3Clocks and Timers 4================= 5 6arm64 7----- 8On arm64, Hyper-V virtualizes the ARMv8 architectural system counter 9and timer. Guest VMs use this virtualized hardware as the Linux 10clocksource and clockevents via the standard arm_arch_timer.c 11driver, just as they would on bare metal. Linux vDSO support for the 12architectural system counter is functional in guest VMs on Hyper-V. 13While Hyper-V also provides a synthetic system clock and four synthetic 14per-CPU timers as described in the TLFS, they are not used by the 15Linux kernel in a Hyper-V guest on arm64. However, older versions 16of Hyper-V for arm64 only partially virtualize the ARMv8 17architectural timer, such that the timer does not generate 18interrupts in the VM. Because of this limitation, running current 19Linux kernel versions on these older Hyper-V versions requires an 20out-of-tree patch to use the Hyper-V synthetic clocks/timers instead. 21 22x86/x64 23------- 24On x86/x64, Hyper-V provides guest VMs with a synthetic system clock 25and four synthetic per-CPU timers as described in the TLFS. Hyper-V 26also provides access to the virtualized TSC via the RDTSC and 27related instructions. These TSC instructions do not trap to 28the hypervisor and so provide excellent performance in a VM. 29Hyper-V performs TSC calibration, and provides the TSC frequency 30to the guest VM via a synthetic MSR. Hyper-V initialization code 31in Linux reads this MSR to get the frequency, so it skips TSC 32calibration and sets tsc_reliable. Hyper-V provides virtualized 33versions of the PIT (in Hyper-V Generation 1 VMs only), local 34APIC timer, and RTC. Hyper-V does not provide a virtualized HPET in 35guest VMs. 36 37The Hyper-V synthetic system clock can be read via a synthetic MSR, 38but this access traps to the hypervisor. As a faster alternative, 39the guest can configure a memory page to be shared between the guest 40and the hypervisor. Hyper-V populates this memory page with a 4164-bit scale value and offset value. To read the synthetic clock 42value, the guest reads the TSC and then applies the scale and offset 43as described in the Hyper-V TLFS. The resulting value advances 44at a constant 10 MHz frequency. In the case of a live migration 45to a host with a different TSC frequency, Hyper-V adjusts the 46scale and offset values in the shared page so that the 10 MHz 47frequency is maintained. 48 49Starting with Windows Server 2022 Hyper-V, Hyper-V uses hardware 50support for TSC frequency scaling to enable live migration of VMs 51across Hyper-V hosts where the TSC frequency may be different. 52When a Linux guest detects that this Hyper-V functionality is 53available, it prefers to use Linux's standard TSC-based clocksource. 54Otherwise, it uses the clocksource for the Hyper-V synthetic system 55clock implemented via the shared page (identified as 56"hyperv_clocksource_tsc_page"). 57 58The Hyper-V synthetic system clock is available to user space via 59vDSO, and gettimeofday() and related system calls can execute 60entirely in user space. The vDSO is implemented by mapping the 61shared page with scale and offset values into user space. User 62space code performs the same algorithm of reading the TSC and 63applying the scale and offset to get the constant 10 MHz clock. 64 65Linux clockevents are based on Hyper-V synthetic timer 0 (stimer0). 66While Hyper-V offers 4 synthetic timers for each CPU, Linux only uses 67timer 0. In older versions of Hyper-V, an interrupt from stimer0 68results in a VMBus control message that is demultiplexed by 69vmbus_isr() as described in the Documentation/virt/hyperv/vmbus.rst 70documentation. In newer versions of Hyper-V, stimer0 interrupts can 71be mapped to an architectural interrupt, which is referred to as 72"Direct Mode". Linux prefers to use Direct Mode when available. Since 73x86/x64 doesn't support per-CPU interrupts, Direct Mode statically 74allocates an x86 interrupt vector (HYPERV_STIMER0_VECTOR) across all CPUs 75and explicitly codes it to call the stimer0 interrupt handler. Hence 76interrupts from stimer0 are recorded on the "HVS" line in /proc/interrupts 77rather than being associated with a Linux IRQ. Clockevents based on the 78virtualized PIT and local APIC timer also work, but Hyper-V stimer0 79is preferred. 80 81The driver for the Hyper-V synthetic system clock and timers is 82drivers/clocksource/hyperv_timer.c. 83