Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 22:14:16 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug White <dwhite@gdi.uoregon.edu> To: "Ronald F. Guilmette" <rfg@monkeys.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Setting the CMOS clock... How? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.970922220949.6177b-100000@gdi.uoregon.edu> In-Reply-To: <5589.874974449@monkeys.com>
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On Mon, 22 Sep 1997, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote: > > Greetings again folks. I hope that I haven't used up my quota of questions > yet. > > This time I _do_ have one that I would have thought would have been an > FAQ... for the questions list anyway... so I did a search in the online > archives of the questions list, but I still came up empty. > > On Linux, there is a program called /sbin/clock which can be used to > set the standard x86 system ``CMOS time-of-day clock'' from the kernel's > current time-of-day value or vise versa. > > Try as I might, I can't seem to find the thing that (under FreeBSD) > performs the same function. Is there such a thing? If so, where do > I find it? date(8) takes care of it. FreeBSD will convert the time given to the proper format to store it in the CMOS clock, depending if you're using it at UTC or not. In short: date(8) will DTRT. > P.S. In all truth, I'm not even 100% sure what the Linux manpage for > /sbin/clock is referring to when it says ``CMOS clock''. Is that what > the FreeBSD 2.2.2 clocks(7) manpage calls the ``mc14618a clock''? Or > is it the thing that the FreeBSD manpage calls the ``i8254 clock''? Those clocks are timing clocks (pulses) for the CPU, not the CMOS clock which stores the current date and time. Basically, it's for information and internal kernel usage only. The topic of computer timekeeping is pretty fascinating and is riddled with bad quality caused by cheap crystals. I can provide URLs to pages about timekeeping if you're interested :) Doug White | University of Oregon Internet: dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu | Residence Networking Assistant http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dwhite | Computer Science Major Spam routed to /dev/null by Procmail | Death to Cyberpromo
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