Bug 222251

Summary: ps start time jitter
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: JW <ohtmvyyn>
Component: procpsAssignee: Tomas Smetana <tsmetana>
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE QA Contact: Brian Brock <bbrock>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 6   
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: 3.2.7-9.fc6 Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2007-04-26 13:16:59 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
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Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description JW 2007-01-11 02:58:37 UTC 
Description of problem:
When running ps repeatedly it is possible to observe jitter in the STIME field.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
procps-3.2.7-8

How reproducible:
Always, provided the planets are aligned correctly

Steps to Reproduce:
1. ps -ef
2. observe STIME column
3.
  
Actual results:
STIME field sometimes appears to randomly change value

Expected results:
STIME field for a process should not change over time or invocations of ps

Additional info:
The STIME field is calculated from "time_of_boot + pp->start_time/Hertz" and
effectively "time_of_boot = time(NULL) - uptime(0, 0)".
The problem appears to be that uptime() is not synchronous with time(). It would
also seem that at some stage pp->start_time was secs since 1970 (which is what
code comments still say) but it is now jiffies since boot time. So in the
process of reading /proc/uptime and /proc/*/stat non-atomically there is going
to be a discrepancy.

Wouldn't it be a lot better if kernel recorded actual absolute start time? What
if timezone changes, or daylight saving begins, or clock gets adjusted for any
other reason?

Alternatively the kernel could record /proc/boottime (to match uptime) so that
programs like ps don't have to try and calculate it with non-atomic
time(NULL)-[/proc/uptime]
Comment 1 Tomas Smetana 2007-04-25 11:51:42 UTC 
I really don't know of any simple solution of this. Another related problem is
that /proc/uptime is not updated on suspended system. Then the STIME coloumn
reports totally wrong value.
Comment 2 Tomas Smetana 2007-04-26 13:16:59 UTC 
There's no need to compute the boot time -- it's written in /proc/stat. So
substituting uptime by (time(0) - btime) should help.