daemon: add SdNotifyMonotonicUsec helper function

The synchronized service reload protocol added in systemd version 253
requires that the service provides a MONOTONIC_USEC field alongside the
RELOADING=1 notification message for synchronization purposes. The value
carried in this field must be the system CLOCK_MONOTONIC timestamp at
the time the notification message was generated as systemd compares it
to other CLOCK_MONOTONIC timestamps taken by pid1.

While the Go standard library does utilize CLOCK_MONOTONIC in the
implementation of package "time", the absolute monotonic timestamps in
time.Time values are not made available to programmers. Users familiar
with idiomatic usage of monotonic timestamps in Go might (incorrectly)
try to implement MONOTONIC_USEC using process-relative monotonic
timestamps, like so:

    var processStart = time.Now()

    func NotifyReloadingINCORRECT() {
    	ts := time.Since(processStart)/time.Microsecond  // WRONG
    	msg := fmt.Sprintf(
    		daemon.SdNotifyReload+"\nMONOTONIC_USEC=%d", ts,
    	)
    	_, _ = daemon.SdNotify(false, msg)
    }

Help users fall into the pit of success by providing a helper function
SdNotifyMonotonicUsec() which returns a MONOTONIC_USEC string which
encodes the system CLOCK_MONOTONIC timestamp in decimal microseconds, as
systemd expects.

Signed-off-by: Cory Snider <[email protected]>

Author: corhere

daemon/sdnotify_linux_test.go

@@ -0,0 +1,78 @@
+// Copyright 2025 CoreOS, Inc.
+//
+// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+// You may obtain a copy of the License at
+//
+//     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+//
+// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+// limitations under the License.
+
+package daemon
+
+import (
+	"strconv"
+	"strings"
+	"testing"
+	"time"
+
+	"golang.org/x/sys/unix"
+)
+
+// TestSdNotifyMonotonicUsec checks that SdNotifyMonotonicUsec is probably not returning complete garbage.
+func TestSdNotifyMonotonicUsec(t *testing.T) {
+	var resolution unix.Timespec
+	if err := unix.ClockGetres(unix.CLOCK_MONOTONIC, &resolution); err != nil {
+		if err == unix.EINVAL {
+			t.Log("CLOCK_MONOTONIC is not supported on this system")
+			if got := SdNotifyMonotonicUsec(); got != "" {
+				t.Errorf("SdNotifyMonotonicUsec() = %q; want empty string", got)
+			}
+			return
+		}
+		t.Fatalf("ClockGetres(CLOCK_MONOTONIC) failed: %v", err)
+	}
+
+	now := func() uint64 {
+		got := SdNotifyMonotonicUsec()
+		t.Logf("SdNotifyMonotonicUsec() = %q", got)
+		if got == "" {
+			t.Fatal("SdNotifyMonotonicUsec() returned empty string on system which supports CLOCK_MONOTONIC")
+		}
+		fields := strings.SplitN(got, "=", 2)
+		if len(fields) != 2 {
+			t.Fatal("string is not a well-formed variable assignment")
+		}
+		tag, val := fields[0], fields[1]
+		if tag != "MONOTONIC_USEC" {
+			t.Errorf("expected tag MONOTONIC_USEC, got %q", tag)
+		}
+		if val[len(val)-1] != '\n' {
+			t.Errorf("expected value to end with newline, got %q", val)
+		}
+		ts, err := strconv.ParseUint(val[:len(val)-1], 10, 64)
+		if err != nil {
+			t.Fatalf("value %q is not well-formed: %v", val, err)
+		}
+		if ts == 0 {
+			// CLOCK_MONOTONIC is defined on Linux as the number of seconds
+			// since boot, per clock_gettime(2). A timestamp of zero is
+			// almost certainly bogus.
+			t.Fatal("timestamp is zero")
+		}
+		return ts
+	}
+
+	start := now()
+	time.Sleep(time.Duration(resolution.Nano()) * 3)
+	ts := now()
+	if ts < start {
+		t.Errorf("timestamp went backwards: %d < %d", ts, start)
+	} else if ts == start {
+		t.Errorf("timestamp did not advance: %d == %d", ts, start)
+	}
+}

daemon/sdnotify_other.go

@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+// Copyright 2025 CoreOS, Inc.
+//
+// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+// You may obtain a copy of the License at
+//
+//    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+//
+// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+// limitations under the License.
+
+//go:build !unix
+// +build !unix
+
+package daemon
+
+// SdNotifyMonotonicUsec returns the empty string on unsupported platforms.
+func SdNotifyMonotonicUsec() string {
+	return ""
+}

daemon/sdnotify_unix.go

@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+// Copyright 2025 CoreOS, Inc.
+//
+// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+// You may obtain a copy of the License at
+//
+//    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+//
+// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+// limitations under the License.
+
+//go:build unix
+// +build unix
+
+package daemon
+
+import (
+	"strconv"
+
+	"golang.org/x/sys/unix"
+)
+
+// SdNotifyMonotonicUsec returns a MONOTONIC_USEC=... assignment for the current time
+// with a trailing newline included. This is typically used with [SdNotifyReloading].
+//
+// If the monotonic clock is not available on the system, the empty string is returned.
+func SdNotifyMonotonicUsec() string {
+	var ts unix.Timespec
+	if err := unix.ClockGettime(unix.CLOCK_MONOTONIC, &ts); err != nil {
+		// Monotonic clock is not available on this system.
+		return ""
+	}
+	return "MONOTONIC_USEC=" + strconv.FormatInt(ts.Nano()/1000, 10) + "\n"
+}

go.mod

@@ -2,4 +2,7 @@ module github.com/coreos/go-systemd/v22
 
 go 1.12
 
-require github.com/godbus/dbus/v5 v5.1.0
+require (
+	github.com/godbus/dbus/v5 v5.1.0
+	golang.org/x/sys v0.0.0-20190907184412-d223b2b6db03
+)

go.sum

@@ -1,2 +1,4 @@
 github.com/godbus/dbus/v5 v5.1.0 h1:4KLkAxT3aOY8Li4FRJe/KvhoNFFxo0m6fNuFUO8QJUk=
 github.com/godbus/dbus/v5 v5.1.0/go.mod h1:xhWf0FNVPg57R7Z0UbKHbJfkEywrmjJnf7w5xrFpKfA=
+golang.org/x/sys v0.0.0-20190907184412-d223b2b6db03 h1:b3JiLYVaG9kHjTcOQIoUh978YMCO7oVTQQBLudU47zY=
+golang.org/x/sys v0.0.0-20190907184412-d223b2b6db03/go.mod h1:h1NjWce9XRLGQEsW7wpKNCjG9DtNlClVuFLEZdDNbEs=