linux-next/Documentation/ptp/ptp.txt

* 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)