Time jumping on both 4.x and 5.x ...

[Marc G. Fournier]

In trying to isolate an issue where the PostgreSQL 'explain analyze' is
showing "odd results" (namely, negative time estimates on queries), Tom
Lane wrote a quick C program to test gettimeofday() (program attached) ...
the results on a 4.9-PRERELEASE kernel of Sep 20 14:16:48 ADT 2003 shows:

neptune# time ./timetest
out of order tv_sec: 1070068479 99040, prev 1070069174 725235
out of order tv_usec: 1070068479 99040, prev 1070069174 725235
out of order tv_sec: 1070069175 19687, prev 1070068479 99040
out of order tv_usec: 1070069175 19687, prev 1070068479 99040
out of order tv_sec: 1070068499 99377, prev 1070069194 625573
out of order tv_usec: 1070068499 99377, prev 1070069194 625573
out of order tv_sec: 1070069194 808542, prev 1070068499 99377
^C1.171u 23.461s 0:24.68 99.7%  5+169k 1+0io 0pf+0w

One person on the list has tried the same script on a 5.2 kernel, and
reports seeing similar results, but after a longer period of time (~30min)
...

In most (all?) cases, the offset appears to be ~+/-695 secs ... Linux ppl
on the list, running the same problem, seem to be able to reproduce the
issue, except they are only finding differences of 1 microsecond, and then
only on older kernels (2.2.x, apparently) ... those running newer Linux
kernels are reporting a clean run ...

Known problem?

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy at hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664
-------------- next part --------------
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/time.h>

int
main()
{
	struct timeval prevtime;
	struct timeval curtime;

	gettimeofday(&prevtime, NULL);

	for (;;)
	{
		gettimeofday(&curtime, NULL);

		if (curtime.tv_usec < 0 || curtime.tv_usec >= 1000000)
			fprintf(stderr, "bogus tv_usec: %ld %ld, prev %ld %ld\n",
					(long int) curtime.tv_sec,
					(long int) curtime.tv_usec,
					(long int) prevtime.tv_sec,
					(long int) prevtime.tv_usec);

		if (curtime.tv_sec < prevtime.tv_sec ||
			curtime.tv_sec > prevtime.tv_sec + 1)
			fprintf(stderr, "out of order tv_sec: %ld %ld, prev %ld %ld\n",
					(long int) curtime.tv_sec,
					(long int) curtime.tv_usec,
					(long int) prevtime.tv_sec,
					(long int) prevtime.tv_usec);

		if (curtime.tv_usec < prevtime.tv_usec &&
			curtime.tv_sec != prevtime.tv_sec + 1)
			fprintf(stderr, "out of order tv_usec: %ld %ld, prev %ld %ld\n",
					(long int) curtime.tv_sec,
					(long int) curtime.tv_usec,
					(long int) prevtime.tv_sec,
					(long int) prevtime.tv_usec);

		prevtime = curtime;
	}

	return 0;
}