From: Kalin KOZHUHAROV <me.kalin@gmail.com>
To: neumann@cgws.de
Cc: WireGuard mailing list <wireguard@lists.zx2c4.com>
Subject: Re: Need for HW-clock independent timestamps
Date: Sat, 12 May 2018 00:45:34 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAKXLc7capqT5oFinwT6Cj1-b2h5gKo+CG+WTLbFO+bG7pR7NsQ@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <c1e04862-162f-eff9-7884-467f672608e2@cgws.de>
On Sat, May 12, 2018 at 12:07 AM, Axel Neumann <neumann@cgws.de> wrote:
> We have the following chicken-egg problem:
> We are using WG on openwrt devices which do not have a hardware clock so
> that time is resetted after each reboot.
> Because internet access shall be routed via WG tunnels the internet and
> network-time services (NTP) is not available unless WG works properly.
> But, guess, to reconnect, WG needs a greater time than before it
> rebooted :-(
>
> I heard that a suggested solution is to periodically save the current
> time to filesystem and then fix it during boot based on the last saved
> one. But all embedded devices use flash memory with a limited amount
> (about 10^5) of write cycles before they become unstable which would
> destroy the flash within weeks.
>
Good/Hard problem!
> Any ideas how to circumvent this problem?
>
I only see 2 ways:
* hardware: add a cheap RTC (best), or storage (USB, SD)
* policy: add exception for ntpdate on base UDP (not WG) (or have
dedicated server/s for that, which you control).
BTW, while flash write cycles are indeed limited, you are writing a
very small data (that causes a single block to be rewritten).
So a device with say 32 MB(8000 x 4K blocks) will last about 9000
years if you write one block once per hour until 10% (=800) of its
cells are past 10^5 writes.
(or 3 years if you write once per second!)
But my knowledge says 10^3-10^4 write cycles (so still 90-900 years for 1/hour).
If you have a large number of devices of the same hardware, I'd
suggest a "kill test" of one of them, by rewriting its flash. You can
further use specific file-systems optimized for NAND/NOR flash.
Cheers,
Kalin.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2018-05-11 22:43 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 40+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2018-05-11 22:07 WG: " Axel Neumann
2018-05-11 22:45 ` Kalin KOZHUHAROV [this message]
2018-05-12 0:05 ` Glen Bojsza
2018-05-12 19:29 ` Axel Neumann
2018-05-12 19:41 ` Aaron Jones
2018-05-15 20:21 ` Devan Carpenter
2018-05-15 20:49 ` Kalin KOZHUHAROV
2018-05-16 7:10 ` Matthias Urlichs
2018-05-16 19:32 ` Axel Neumann
2018-05-16 20:32 ` Steve Gilberd
2018-05-17 3:40 ` Paul
2018-05-17 5:03 ` Roman Mamedov
2018-05-17 5:53 ` Matthias Urlichs
2018-05-17 7:07 ` Axel Neumann
2018-05-17 8:28 ` Matthias Urlichs
2018-05-16 20:35 ` Kalin KOZHUHAROV
2018-05-12 22:10 ` Toke Høiland-Jørgensen
2018-05-12 23:05 ` Reuben Martin
2018-05-13 6:11 ` Matthias Urlichs
2018-05-13 12:37 ` Toke Høiland-Jørgensen
2018-05-16 7:01 ` Axel Neumann
2018-05-16 9:38 ` Toke Høiland-Jørgensen
2018-05-16 11:08 ` Matthias Urlichs
2018-05-16 11:12 ` Axel Neumann
2018-05-13 14:21 ` Wang Jian
2018-05-21 10:07 ` WG: " Axel Neumann
2018-05-21 11:22 ` Reto Brunner
2018-05-21 11:52 ` Axel Neumann
2018-05-21 12:31 ` Axel Neumann
2018-05-21 12:35 ` Reto Brunner
2018-05-21 13:53 ` Matthias Urlichs
2018-05-21 14:56 ` Bruno Wolff III
2018-05-21 15:34 ` Matthias Urlichs
2018-05-22 20:25 ` Ivan Labáth
2018-05-23 2:51 ` Matthias Urlichs
2019-02-04 14:56 ` Jason A. Donenfeld
2019-02-23 4:00 ` Axel Neumann
2019-02-23 12:35 ` Ivan Labáth
[not found] <1324673763.992877.1526187430298.ref@mail.yahoo.com>
2018-05-13 4:57 ` reiner otto
2018-05-13 12:35 ` Toke Høiland-Jørgensen
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