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+
+* 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)
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