Overflow in calculating audio timestamp

sound/core/pcm_lib.c:update_audio_tstamp() contains the following calculation:
audio_nsecs = div_u64(audio_frames * 1000000000LL, runtime->rate);
This will result in a 64-bit overflow after 4.4 days at 48000 Hz, or 1.1 days at 192000.
Are you interested in a patch to improve this?
The same calculation occurs in a couple of other places.
Alan.

Hi,
Thank you for the report.
On Thu, Feb 02, 2023 at 01:55:24PM +0000, Alan Young wrote:
sound/core/pcm_lib.c:update_audio_tstamp() contains the following calculation:
audio_nsecs = div_u64(audio_frames * 1000000000LL, runtime->rate);
This will result in a 64-bit overflow after 4.4 days at 48000 Hz, or 1.1 days at 192000.
Are you interested in a patch to improve this?
The same calculation occurs in a couple of other places.
I'm interested in your patch. Would you please post it C.C.ed to the list and me? As you noted, we can see the issue in ALSA PCM core and Intel HDA stuffs at least.
* sound/core/pcm_lib.c * sound/pci/hda/hda_controller.c * sound/soc/intel/skylake/skl-pcm.c
I note that 'NSEC_PER_SEC' macro is available once including 'linux/time.h'. It is better to use instead of the literal. The macro is defined in 'include/vdso/time64.h'.
As another issue, the value of 'audio_frames' comes from the value of 'struct snd_pcm_runtime.hw_ptr_wrap'. In ALSA PCM core, the value is increased by the size of PCM buffer every time hw_ptr cross the boundary of PCM buffer, thus multiples of the size is expected. Nevertheless, there is no check for overflow within 64 bit storage. In my opinion, the committer had less care of it since user does not practically playback or capture PCM substream so long. But the additional check is preferable as long as it does not break the fallback implementation of audio time stamp.
Regards
Takashi Sakamoto

On 03/02/2023 00:34, Takashi Sakamoto wrote:
Hi,
Thank you for the report.
On Thu, Feb 02, 2023 at 01:55:24PM +0000, Alan Young wrote:
sound/core/pcm_lib.c:update_audio_tstamp() contains the following calculation:
audio_nsecs = div_u64(audio_frames * 1000000000LL, runtime->rate);
This will result in a 64-bit overflow after 4.4 days at 48000 Hz, or 1.1 days at 192000.
Are you interested in a patch to improve this?
The same calculation occurs in a couple of other places.
I'm interested in your patch. Would you please post it C.C.ed to the list and me? As you noted, we can see the issue in ALSA PCM core and Intel HDA stuffs at least.
- sound/core/pcm_lib.c
- sound/pci/hda/hda_controller.c
- sound/soc/intel/skylake/skl-pcm.c
I note that 'NSEC_PER_SEC' macro is available once including 'linux/time.h'. It is better to use instead of the literal. The macro is defined in 'include/vdso/time64.h'.
As another issue, the value of 'audio_frames' comes from the value of 'struct snd_pcm_runtime.hw_ptr_wrap'. In ALSA PCM core, the value is increased by the size of PCM buffer every time hw_ptr cross the boundary of PCM buffer, thus multiples of the size is expected. Nevertheless, there is no check for overflow within 64 bit storage. In my opinion, the committer had less care of it since user does not practically playback or capture PCM substream so long. But the additional check is preferable as long as it does not break the fallback implementation of audio time stamp.
I have not yet finished testing various alternatives. I want to extend the overflow by "enough" and also am conscious of the need to keep the overhead down.
I actually think, on reflection, that the only case that matters is the call from update_audio_tstamp(). The others only deal with codec delays which will be small (unless I misunderstand those drivers).
This is what I have so far but I'll submit a proper patch when I have it refined.
static u64 snd_pcm_lib_frames_to_nsecs(u64 frames, unsigned int rate) { /* * Avoid 64-bit calculation overflow after: * - 4.8 days @ 44100 * - 0.56 days @ 384000 * extending these intervals by a factor of 100. */ if (frames < 0xffffffffffffffffLLU / NSEC_PER_SEC) return div_u64(frames * NSEC_PER_SEC, rate);
if (rate % 100 == 0) return div_u64(frames * (NSEC_PER_SEC/100), (rate/100));
/* Fallback: reduce precision to approximately deci-micro-seconds: 1.28e-7 */ return div_u64(frames * (NSEC_PER_SEC >> 7), rate) << 7; }
Alan.

On 03. 02. 23 17:11, Alan Young wrote:
On 03/02/2023 00:34, Takashi Sakamoto wrote:
Hi,
Thank you for the report.
On Thu, Feb 02, 2023 at 01:55:24PM +0000, Alan Young wrote:
sound/core/pcm_lib.c:update_audio_tstamp() contains the following calculation:
audio_nsecs = div_u64(audio_frames * 1000000000LL, runtime->rate);
This will result in a 64-bit overflow after 4.4 days at 48000 Hz, or 1.1 days at 192000.
Are you interested in a patch to improve this?
The same calculation occurs in a couple of other places.
I'm interested in your patch. Would you please post it C.C.ed to the list and me? As you noted, we can see the issue in ALSA PCM core and Intel HDA stuffs at least.
- sound/core/pcm_lib.c
- sound/pci/hda/hda_controller.c
- sound/soc/intel/skylake/skl-pcm.c
I note that 'NSEC_PER_SEC' macro is available once including 'linux/time.h'. It is better to use instead of the literal. The macro is defined in 'include/vdso/time64.h'.
As another issue, the value of 'audio_frames' comes from the value of 'struct snd_pcm_runtime.hw_ptr_wrap'. In ALSA PCM core, the value is increased by the size of PCM buffer every time hw_ptr cross the boundary of PCM buffer, thus multiples of the size is expected. Nevertheless, there is no check for overflow within 64 bit storage. In my opinion, the committer had less care of it since user does not practically playback or capture PCM substream so long. But the additional check is preferable as long as it does not break the fallback implementation of audio time stamp.
I have not yet finished testing various alternatives. I want to extend the overflow by "enough" and also am conscious of the need to keep the overhead down.
I actually think, on reflection, that the only case that matters is the call from update_audio_tstamp(). The others only deal with codec delays which will be small (unless I misunderstand those drivers).
This is what I have so far but I'll submit a proper patch when I have it refined.
static u64 snd_pcm_lib_frames_to_nsecs(u64 frames, unsigned int rate) { /* * Avoid 64-bit calculation overflow after: * - 4.8 days @ 44100 * - 0.56 days @ 384000 * extending these intervals by a factor of 100. */ if (frames < 0xffffffffffffffffLLU / NSEC_PER_SEC) return div_u64(frames * NSEC_PER_SEC, rate);
if (rate % 100 == 0) return div_u64(frames * (NSEC_PER_SEC/100), (rate/100));
/* Fallback: reduce precision to approximately deci-micro-seconds: 1.28e-7 */ return div_u64(frames * (NSEC_PER_SEC >> 7), rate) << 7; }
Thank you for your suggestion, but I think that the *whole* code for !get_time_info in update_audio_tstamp() should be recoded. The calling of ns_to_timespec64() is not enough to handle the boundary wraps in a decent range (tenths years for 24x7 operation) and the bellow code is dangerous for 32-bit apps / system:
if (crossed_boundary) { snd_BUG_ON(crossed_boundary != 1); runtime->hw_ptr_wrap += runtime->boundary; }
I would probably propose to have just hw_ptr_wrap +1 counter (we can reconstruct the frame position back by multiplication and do range check later), remove snd_BUG_ON and improve the timespec64 calculation.
The calculation should be split to two parts (tv_sec / tv_nsec):
1) calculate seconds: (frames / rate) 2) calculate the remainder (ns): ((frames % rate) * NSEC_PER_SEC) / rate
With 64-bit integer range, we should go up to (for 384000Hz rate):
2**64 / 384000 / 3600 / 24 / 365 = ~1523287 years
Maybe I did a mistake somewhere. I'm open for comments.
Jaroslav

On 2/3/23 12:02, Jaroslav Kysela wrote:
On 03. 02. 23 17:11, Alan Young wrote:
On 03/02/2023 00:34, Takashi Sakamoto wrote:
Hi,
Thank you for the report.
On Thu, Feb 02, 2023 at 01:55:24PM +0000, Alan Young wrote:
sound/core/pcm_lib.c:update_audio_tstamp() contains the following calculation:
audio_nsecs = div_u64(audio_frames * 1000000000LL, runtime->rate);
This will result in a 64-bit overflow after 4.4 days at 48000 Hz, or 1.1 days at 192000.
Are you interested in a patch to improve this?
The same calculation occurs in a couple of other places.
I'm interested in your patch. Would you please post it C.C.ed to the list and me? As you noted, we can see the issue in ALSA PCM core and Intel HDA stuffs at least.
* sound/core/pcm_lib.c * sound/pci/hda/hda_controller.c * sound/soc/intel/skylake/skl-pcm.c
I note that 'NSEC_PER_SEC' macro is available once including 'linux/time.h'. It is better to use instead of the literal. The macro is defined in 'include/vdso/time64.h'.
As another issue, the value of 'audio_frames' comes from the value of 'struct snd_pcm_runtime.hw_ptr_wrap'. In ALSA PCM core, the value is increased by the size of PCM buffer every time hw_ptr cross the boundary of PCM buffer, thus multiples of the size is expected. Nevertheless, there is no check for overflow within 64 bit storage. In my opinion, the committer had less care of it since user does not practically playback or capture PCM substream so long. But the additional check is preferable as long as it does not break the fallback implementation of audio time stamp.
I have not yet finished testing various alternatives. I want to extend the overflow by "enough" and also am conscious of the need to keep the overhead down.
I actually think, on reflection, that the only case that matters is the call from update_audio_tstamp(). The others only deal with codec delays which will be small (unless I misunderstand those drivers).
This is what I have so far but I'll submit a proper patch when I have it refined.
static u64 snd_pcm_lib_frames_to_nsecs(u64 frames, unsigned int rate) { /* * Avoid 64-bit calculation overflow after: * - 4.8 days @ 44100 * - 0.56 days @ 384000 * extending these intervals by a factor of 100. */ if (frames < 0xffffffffffffffffLLU / NSEC_PER_SEC) return div_u64(frames * NSEC_PER_SEC, rate);
if (rate % 100 == 0) return div_u64(frames * (NSEC_PER_SEC/100), (rate/100));
/* Fallback: reduce precision to approximately deci-micro-seconds: 1.28e-7 */ return div_u64(frames * (NSEC_PER_SEC >> 7), rate) << 7; }
Thank you for your suggestion, but I think that the *whole* code for !get_time_info in update_audio_tstamp() should be recoded. The calling of ns_to_timespec64() is not enough to handle the boundary wraps in a decent range (tenths years for 24x7 operation) and the bellow code is dangerous for 32-bit apps / system:
if (crossed_boundary) { snd_BUG_ON(crossed_boundary != 1); runtime->hw_ptr_wrap += runtime->boundary; }
I would probably propose to have just hw_ptr_wrap +1 counter (we can reconstruct the frame position back by multiplication and do range check later), remove snd_BUG_ON and improve the timespec64 calculation.
The calculation should be split to two parts (tv_sec / tv_nsec):
- calculate seconds: (frames / rate)
- calculate the remainder (ns): ((frames % rate) * NSEC_PER_SEC) / rate
With 64-bit integer range, we should go up to (for 384000Hz rate):
2**64 / 384000 / 3600 / 24 / 365 = ~1523287 years
Maybe I did a mistake somewhere. I'm open for comments.
I am not following how the boundary comes into play for cases where the timestamp comes directly from a link counter, and is not related to the DMA hw_ptr at all.

On 04/02/2023 00:54, Pierre-Louis Bossart wrote:
I am not following how the boundary comes into play for cases where the timestamp comes directly from a link counter, and is not related to the DMA hw_ptr at all.
I don't think it does. This is all only for the SNDRV_PCM_AUDIO_TSTAMP_TYPE_DEFAULT case.

On 03/02/2023 18:02, Jaroslav Kysela wrote:
Thank you for your suggestion, but I think that the *whole* code for !get_time_info in update_audio_tstamp() should be recoded. The calling of ns_to_timespec64() is not enough to handle the boundary wraps in a decent range (tenths years for 24x7 operation)
Yes, indeed. My ambition was unnecessarily short.
and the bellow code is dangerous for 32-bit apps / system:
if (crossed_boundary) { snd_BUG_ON(crossed_boundary != 1); runtime->hw_ptr_wrap += runtime->boundary; }
I don't understand why?
I would probably propose to have just hw_ptr_wrap +1 counter (we can reconstruct the frame position back by multiplication and do range check later),
Would that really help that much? It would extend the total possible duration but perhaps ~1523287 years(below) is sufficient.
remove snd_BUG_ON
Again, why?
and improve the timespec64 calculation.
The calculation should be split to two parts (tv_sec / tv_nsec):
- calculate seconds: (frames / rate)
- calculate the remainder (ns): ((frames % rate) * NSEC_PER_SEC) / rate
With 64-bit integer range, we should go up to (for 384000Hz rate):
2**64 / 384000 / 3600 / 24 / 365 = ~1523287 years
Yes indeed. How about this?
static inline void snd_pcm_lib_frames_to_timespec64(u64 frames, unsigned int rate, struct timespec64 *audio_tstamp) { u32 remainder; audio_tstamp->tv_sec = div_u64_rem(frames, rate, &remainder); audio_tstamp->tv_nsec = div_u64(mul_u32_u32(remainder, NSEC_PER_SEC), rate); }
Alan.

On 04. 02. 23 10:11, Alan Young wrote:
On 03/02/2023 18:02, Jaroslav Kysela wrote:
Thank you for your suggestion, but I think that the *whole* code for !get_time_info in update_audio_tstamp() should be recoded. The calling of ns_to_timespec64() is not enough to handle the boundary wraps in a decent range (tenths years for 24x7 operation)
Yes, indeed. My ambition was unnecessarily short.
and the bellow code is dangerous for 32-bit apps / system:
if (crossed_boundary) { snd_BUG_ON(crossed_boundary != 1); runtime->hw_ptr_wrap += runtime->boundary; }
I don't understand why?
I would probably propose to have just hw_ptr_wrap +1 counter (we can reconstruct the frame position back by multiplication and do range check later),
Would that really help that much? It would extend the total possible duration but perhaps ~1523287 years(below) is sufficient.
remove snd_BUG_ON
Again, why?
For 32-bit apps the boundary is near to UINT32_MAX (see recalculate_boundary() function). So only one crossing point is not enough to cover a decent time range.
There should be a better check, if the add operation crosses the U64 range for snd_BUG_ON. In my eyes, it looks safer to use counter here and do the checks in the function which uses this value.
and improve the timespec64 calculation.
The calculation should be split to two parts (tv_sec / tv_nsec):
- calculate seconds: (frames / rate)
- calculate the remainder (ns): ((frames % rate) * NSEC_PER_SEC) / rate
With 64-bit integer range, we should go up to (for 384000Hz rate):
2**64 / 384000 / 3600 / 24 / 365 = ~1523287 years
Yes indeed. How about this?
static inline void snd_pcm_lib_frames_to_timespec64(u64 frames, unsigned int rate, struct timespec64 *audio_tstamp) { u32 remainder; audio_tstamp->tv_sec = div_u64_rem(frames, rate, &remainder); audio_tstamp->tv_nsec = div_u64(mul_u32_u32(remainder, NSEC_PER_SEC), rate);
Yes, this looks fine.
Jaroslav

Hi Jaroslav,
On 04/02/2023 15:40, Jaroslav Kysela wrote:
For 32-bit apps the boundary is near to UINT32_MAX (see recalculate_boundary() function). So only one crossing point is not enough to cover a decent time range.
There should be a better check, if the add operation crosses the U64 range for snd_BUG_ON. In my eyes, it looks safer to use counter here and do the checks in the function which uses this value.
I think you are misunderstanding how crossed_boundary is used. It relates to a single call of snd_pcm_update_hw_ptr0(), which should be called once per period, or at the very least once per buffer-size. In its processing, it may be detected that the boundary has been crossed. There are three separate tests that could result in this but only one should actually happen during a single call. The snd_BUG_ON() is just to detect (report on) a failure in that logic.
None of this restricts the total number of frames that might be processed, as a result of multiple boundary crossings.
Changing hw_ptr_wrap to be a boundary-wrap-counter instead of its current use as the cumulative number of frames processed at boundary wraps would not make any useful difference.
Unless there is something else that I'm missing....
Alan.

On 06. 02. 23 9:52, Alan Young wrote:
Hi Jaroslav,
On 04/02/2023 15:40, Jaroslav Kysela wrote:
For 32-bit apps the boundary is near to UINT32_MAX (see recalculate_boundary() function). So only one crossing point is not enough to cover a decent time range.
There should be a better check, if the add operation crosses the U64 range for snd_BUG_ON. In my eyes, it looks safer to use counter here and do the checks in the function which uses this value.
I think you are misunderstanding how crossed_boundary is used. It relates to a single call of snd_pcm_update_hw_ptr0(), which should be called once per period, or at the very least once per buffer-size. In its processing, it may be detected that the boundary has been crossed. There are three separate tests that could result in this but only one should actually happen during a single call. The snd_BUG_ON() is just to detect (report on) a failure in that logic.
Oops, the `snd_BUG_ON(crossed_boundary != 1)` check is fine, of course. I thought that `if (crossed_boundary)` checks for `if (runtime->hw_ptr_wrap)` which has a different meaning. Thank you for your explanation.
None of this restricts the total number of frames that might be processed, as a result of multiple boundary crossings.
Unfortunately, for 64-bit systems, it works only for up to 2 iterations, because boundary is nearby LONG_MAX (see snd_pcm_hw_params()).
Changing hw_ptr_wrap to be a boundary-wrap-counter instead of its current use as the cumulative number of frames processed at boundary wraps would not make any useful difference.
At least, we should not have a problem even with the 64-bit boundary crossing in the hw_ptr0 function. But given the fact, that it's impossible to reach this limit, the fix for the timestamp calculation would be sufficient at the moment.
And `snd_BUG_ON(runtime->hw_ptr_wrap < runtime->boundary);` check may be useful when the hw_ptr_wrap is updated.
Thanks, Jaroslav

On 2/2/23 07:55, Alan Young wrote:
sound/core/pcm_lib.c:update_audio_tstamp() contains the following calculation:
audio_nsecs = div_u64(audio_frames * 1000000000LL, runtime->rate);
This will result in a 64-bit overflow after 4.4 days at 48000 Hz, or 1.1 days at 192000.
Are you interested in a patch to improve this?
The same calculation occurs in a couple of other places.
It's clearly unintentional, thanks for reporting this.
I added this in 2012 in
4eeaaeaea1ce ("ALSA: core: add hooks for audio timestamps")
and probably assumed the use of 64-bit was good enough. You just proved me wrong!
participants (4)
-
Alan Young
-
Jaroslav Kysela
-
Pierre-Louis Bossart
-
Takashi Sakamoto