357051 - Implement GetHighResClock on Linux

Status: NEW

(NSS :: Libraries, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Wan-Teh Chang]

Right now the GetHighResClock function does nothing on Linux:

 static size_t
 GetHighResClock(void *buf, size_t maxbytes)
 {
     return 0;
 }

Since the entropy in high-resolution clocks is low and Linux
has /dev/urandom, it may not be that important to implement this
function.  But it is simple to implement it for x86 and Itanium
at least.  See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDTSC
http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/tech/tech_TechSingleTipDetailPage_IDX/1,2366,5057,00.html

We should find out how to do this for x86_64 and if there is a
glibc function we can use

Comment 1

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

Won't happen for NSS 3.12 unless someone outside the team contributes it.