wall-clock-synchronizer.cc

Go to the documentation of this file.

/*
 * Copyright (c) 2008 University of Washington
 *
 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as
 * published by the Free Software Foundation;
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
 * Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
 */
 
#include "wall-clock-synchronizer.h"
 
#include "log.h"
 
#include <chrono>
#include <condition_variable>
#include <ctime> // clock_t
#include <mutex>
 
namespace ns3
{
 
NS_LOG_COMPONENT_DEFINE("WallClockSynchronizer");
 
NS_OBJECT_ENSURE_REGISTERED(WallClockSynchronizer);
 
TypeId
WallClockSynchronizer::GetTypeId()
{
    static TypeId tid =
        TypeId("ns3::WallClockSynchronizer").SetParent<Synchronizer>().SetGroupName("Core");
    return tid;
}
 
WallClockSynchronizer::WallClockSynchronizer()
{
    NS_LOG_FUNCTION(this);
    //
    // In Linux, the basic timekeeping unit is derived from a variable called HZ
    // HZ is the frequency in hertz of the system timer.  The system timer fires
    // every 1/HZ seconds and a counter, called the jiffies counter is incremented
    // at each tick.  The time between ticks is called a jiffy (American slang for
    // a short period of time).  The ticking of the jiffies counter is how the
    // the kernel tells time.
    //
    // Now, the shortest time the kernel can sleep is one jiffy since a timer
    // has to be set to expire and trigger the process to be made ready.  The
    // Posix clock CLOCK_REALTIME is defined as a 1/HZ clock, so by doing a
    // clock_getres () on the realtime clock we can infer the scheduler quantum
    // and the minimimum sleep time for the system.  This is most certainly NOT
    // going to be one nanosecond even though clock_nanosleep () pretends it is.
    //
    // The reason this number is important is that we are going to schedule lots
    // of waits for less time than a jiffy.  The clock_nanosleep function is
    // going to guarantee that it will sleep for AT LEAST the time specified.
    // The least time that it will sleep is a jiffy.
    //
    // In order to deal with this, we are going to do a spin-wait if the simulator
    // requires a delay less than a jiffy.  This is on the order of one millisecond
    // (999848 ns) on the ns-regression machine.
    //
    // If the underlying OS does not support posix clocks, we'll just assume a
    // one millisecond quantum and deal with this as best we can
 
    m_jiffy = std::chrono::system_clock::period::num * std::nano::den /
              std::chrono::system_clock::period::den;
    NS_LOG_INFO("Jiffy is " << m_jiffy << " ns");
}
 
WallClockSynchronizer::~WallClockSynchronizer()
{
    NS_LOG_FUNCTION(this);
}
 
bool
WallClockSynchronizer::DoRealtime()
{
    NS_LOG_FUNCTION(this);
    return true;
}
 
uint64_t
WallClockSynchronizer::DoGetCurrentRealtime()
{
    NS_LOG_FUNCTION(this);
    return GetNormalizedRealtime();
}
 
void
WallClockSynchronizer::DoSetOrigin(uint64_t ns)
{
    NS_LOG_FUNCTION(this << ns);
    //
    // In order to make sure we're really locking the simulation time to some
    // wall-clock time, we need to be able to compare that simulation time to
    // that wall-clock time.  The wall clock will have been running for some
    // long time and will probably have a huge count of nanoseconds in it.  We
    // save the real time away so we can subtract it from "now" later and get
    // a count of nanoseconds in real time since the simulation started.
    //
    m_realtimeOriginNano = GetRealtime();
    NS_LOG_INFO("origin = " << m_realtimeOriginNano);
}
 
int64_t
WallClockSynchronizer::DoGetDrift(uint64_t ns)
{
    NS_LOG_FUNCTION(this << ns);
    //
    // In order to make sure we're really locking the simulation time to some
    // wall-clock time, we need to be able to compare that simulation time to
    // that wall-clock time.  In DoSetOrigin we saved the real time at the start
    // of the simulation away.  This is the place where we subtract it from "now"
    // to a count of nanoseconds in real time since the simulation started.  We
    // then subtract the current real time in normalized nanoseconds we just got
    // from the normalized simulation time in nanoseconds that is passed in as
    // the parameter ns.  We return an integer difference, but in reality all of
    // the mechanisms that cause wall-clock to simulator time drift cause events
    // to be late.  That means that the wall-clock will be higher than the
    // simulation time and drift will be positive.  I would be astonished to
    // see a negative drift, but the possibility is admitted for other
    // implementations; and we'll use the ability to report an early result in
    // DoSynchronize below.
    //
    uint64_t nsNow = GetNormalizedRealtime();
 
    if (nsNow > ns)
    {
        //
        // Real time (nsNow) is larger/later than the simulator time (ns).  We are
        // behind real time and the difference (drift) is positive.
        //
        return (int64_t)(nsNow - ns);
    }
    else
    {
        //
        // Real time (nsNow) is smaller/earlier than the simulator time (ns).  We are
        // ahead of real time and the difference (drift) is negative.
        //
        return -(int64_t)(ns - nsNow);
    }
}
 
bool
WallClockSynchronizer::DoSynchronize(uint64_t nsCurrent, uint64_t nsDelay)
{
    NS_LOG_FUNCTION(this << nsCurrent << nsDelay);
    //
    // This is the belly of the beast.  We have received two parameters from the
    // simulator proper -- a current simulation time (nsCurrent) and a simulation
    // time to delay which identifies the time the next event is supposed to fire.
    //
    // The first thing we need to do is to (try and) correct for any realtime
    // drift that has happened in the system.  In this implementation, we realize
    // that all mechanisms for drift will cause the drift to be such that the
    // realtime is greater than the simulation time.  This typically happens when
    // our process is put to sleep for a given time, but actually sleeps for
    // longer.  So, what we want to do is to "catch up" to realtime and delay for
    // less time than we are actually asked to delay.  DriftCorrect will return a
    // number from 0 to nsDelay corresponding to the amount of catching-up we
    // need to do.  If we are more than nsDelay behind, we do not wait at all.
    //
    // Note that it will be impossible to catch up if the amount of drift is
    // cumulatively greater than the amount of delay between events.  The method
    // GetDrift () is available to clients of the syncrhonizer to keep track of
    // the cumulative drift.  The client can assert if the drift gets out of
    // hand, print warning messages, or just ignore the situation and hope it will
    // go away.
    //
    uint64_t ns = DriftCorrect(nsCurrent, nsDelay);
    NS_LOG_INFO("Synchronize ns = " << ns);
    //
    // Once we've decided on how long we need to delay, we need to split this
    // time into sleep waits and busy waits.  The reason for this is described
    // in the comments for the constructor where jiffies and jiffy resolution is
    // explained.
    //
    // Here, I'll just say that we need that the jiffy is the minimum resolution
    // of the system clock.  It can only sleep in blocks of time equal to a jiffy.
    // If we want to be more accurate than a jiffy (we do) then we need to sleep
    // for some number of jiffies and then busy wait for any leftover time.
    //
    uint64_t numberJiffies = ns / m_jiffy;
    NS_LOG_INFO("Synchronize numberJiffies = " << numberJiffies);
    //
    // This is where the real world interjects its very ugly head.  The code
    // immediately below reflects the fact that a sleep is actually quite probably
    // going to end up sleeping for some number of jiffies longer than you wanted.
    // This is because your system is going to be off doing other unimportant
    // stuff during that extra time like running file systems and networks.  What
    // we want to do is to ask the system to sleep enough less than the requested
    // delay so that it comes back early most of the time (coming back early is
    // fine, coming back late is bad).  If we can convince the system to come back
    // early (most of the time), then we can busy-wait until the requested
    // completion time actually comes around (most of the time).
    //
    // The tradeoff here is, of course, that the less time we spend sleeping, the
    // more accurately we will sync up; but the more CPU time we will spend busy
    // waiting (doing nothing).
    //
    // I'm not really sure about this number -- a boss of mine once said, "pick
    // a number and it'll be wrong."  But this works for now.
    //
    // \todo Hardcoded tunable parameter below.
    //
    if (numberJiffies > 3)
    {
        NS_LOG_INFO("SleepWait for " << numberJiffies * m_jiffy << " ns");
        NS_LOG_INFO("SleepWait until " << nsCurrent + numberJiffies * m_jiffy << " ns");
        //
        // SleepWait is interruptible.  If it returns true it meant that the sleep
        // went until the end.  If it returns false, it means that the sleep was
        // interrupted by a Signal.  In this case, we need to return and let the
        // simulator re-evaluate what to do.
        //
        if (!SleepWait((numberJiffies - 3) * m_jiffy))
        {
            NS_LOG_INFO("SleepWait interrupted");
            return false;
        }
    }
    NS_LOG_INFO("Done with SleepWait");
    //
    // We asked the system to sleep for some number of jiffies, but that doesn't
    // mean we actually did.  Let's re-evaluate what we need to do here.  Maybe
    // we're already late.  Probably the "real" delay time left has little to do
    // with what we would calculate it to be naively.
    //
    // We are now at some Realtime.  The important question now is not, "what
    // would we calculate in a mathematicians paradise," it is, "how many
    // nanoseconds do we need to busy-wait until we get to the Realtime that
    // corresponds to nsCurrent + nsDelay (in simulation time).  We have a handy
    // function to do just that -- we ask for the time the realtime clock has
    // drifted away from the simulation clock.  That's our answer.  If the drift
    // is negative, we're early and we need to busy wait for that number of
    // nanoseconds.  The place were we want to be is described by the parameters
    // we were passed by the simulator.
    //
    int64_t nsDrift = DoGetDrift(nsCurrent + nsDelay);
    //
    // If the drift is positive, we are already late and we need to just bail out
    // of here as fast as we can.  Return true to indicate that the requested time
    // has, in fact, passed.
    //
    if (nsDrift >= 0)
    {
        NS_LOG_INFO("Back from SleepWait: IML8 " << nsDrift);
        return true;
    }
    //
    // There are some number of nanoseconds left over and we need to wait until
    // the time defined by nsDrift.  We'll do a SpinWait since the usual case
    // will be that we are doing this Spinwait after we've gotten a rough delay
    // using the SleepWait above.  If SpinWait completes to the end, it will
    // return true; if it is interrupted by a signal it will return false.
    //
    NS_LOG_INFO("SpinWait until " << nsCurrent + nsDelay);
    return SpinWait(nsCurrent + nsDelay);
}
 
void
WallClockSynchronizer::DoSignal()
{
    NS_LOG_FUNCTION(this);
 
    std::unique_lock<std::mutex> lock(m_mutex);
    m_condition = true;
 
    // Manual unlocking is done before notifying, to avoid waking up
    // the waiting thread only to block again (see notify_one for details).
    // Reference: https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/thread/condition_variable
    lock.unlock();
    m_conditionVariable.notify_one();
}
 
void
WallClockSynchronizer::DoSetCondition(bool cond)
{
    NS_LOG_FUNCTION(this << cond);
    m_condition = cond;
}
 
void
WallClockSynchronizer::DoEventStart()
{
    NS_LOG_FUNCTION(this);
    m_nsEventStart = GetNormalizedRealtime();
}
 
uint64_t
WallClockSynchronizer::DoEventEnd()
{
    NS_LOG_FUNCTION(this);
    return GetNormalizedRealtime() - m_nsEventStart;
}
 
bool
WallClockSynchronizer::SpinWait(uint64_t ns)
{
    NS_LOG_FUNCTION(this << ns);
    // We just sit here and spin, wasting CPU cycles until we get to the right
    // time or are told to leave.
    for (;;)
    {
        if (GetNormalizedRealtime() >= ns)
        {
            return true;
        }
        if (m_condition)
        {
            return false;
        }
    }
    // Quiet compiler
    return true;
}
 
bool
WallClockSynchronizer::SleepWait(uint64_t ns)
{
    NS_LOG_FUNCTION(this << ns);
 
    std::unique_lock<std::mutex> lock(m_mutex);
    bool finishedWaiting =
        m_conditionVariable.wait_for(lock,
                                     std::chrono::nanoseconds(ns),      // Timeout
                                     [this]() { return m_condition; }); // Wait condition
 
    return finishedWaiting;
}
 
uint64_t
WallClockSynchronizer::DriftCorrect(uint64_t nsNow, uint64_t nsDelay)
{
    NS_LOG_FUNCTION(this << nsNow << nsDelay);
    int64_t drift = DoGetDrift(nsNow);
    //
    // If we're running late, drift will be positive and we need to correct by
    // delaying for less time.  If we're early for some bizarre reason, we don't
    // do anything since we'll almost instantly self-correct.
    //
    if (drift < 0)
    {
        return nsDelay;
    }
    //
    // If we've drifted out of sync by less than the requested delay, then just
    // subtract the drift from the delay and fix up the drift in one go.  If we
    // have more drift than delay, then we just play catch up as fast as possible
    // by not delaying at all.
    //
    auto correction = (uint64_t)drift;
    if (correction <= nsDelay)
    {
        return nsDelay - correction;
    }
    else
    {
        return 0;
    }
}
 
uint64_t
WallClockSynchronizer::GetRealtime()
{
    NS_LOG_FUNCTION(this);
    auto now = std::chrono::system_clock::now().time_since_epoch();
    return std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::nanoseconds>(now).count();
}
 
uint64_t
WallClockSynchronizer::GetNormalizedRealtime()
{
    NS_LOG_FUNCTION(this);
    return GetRealtime() - m_realtimeOriginNano;
}
 
} // namespace ns3