xref: /freebsd/lib/libsys/adjtime.2 (revision 7899f917b1c0ea178f1d2be0cfb452086d079d23)
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28.Dd May 13, 2021
29.Dt ADJTIME 2
30.Os
31.Sh NAME
32.Nm adjtime
33.Nd "correct the time to allow synchronization of the system clock"
34.Sh LIBRARY
35.Lb libc
36.Sh SYNOPSIS
37.In sys/time.h
38.Ft int
39.Fn adjtime "const struct timeval *delta" "struct timeval *olddelta"
40.Sh DESCRIPTION
41The
42.Fn adjtime
43system call
44makes small adjustments to the system time, as returned by
45.Xr gettimeofday 2 ,
46advancing or retarding it
47by the time specified by the timeval
48.Fa delta .
49If
50.Fa delta
51is negative, the clock is
52slowed down by incrementing it more slowly than normal until
53the correction is complete.
54If
55.Fa delta
56is positive, a larger increment than normal
57is used.
58The skew used to perform the correction is generally a fraction of one percent.
59Thus, the time is always
60a monotonically increasing function.
61A time correction from an earlier call to
62.Fn adjtime
63may not be finished when
64.Fn adjtime
65is called again.
66If
67.Fa olddelta
68is not a null pointer,
69the structure pointed to will contain, upon return, the
70number of microseconds still to be corrected
71from the earlier call.
72.Pp
73This call may be used by time servers that synchronize the clocks
74of computers in a local area network.
75Such time servers would slow down the clocks of some machines
76and speed up the clocks of others to bring them to the average network time.
77.Pp
78The
79.Fn adjtime
80system call
81is restricted to the super-user.
82.Sh RETURN VALUES
83.Rv -std adjtime
84.Sh ERRORS
85The
86.Fn adjtime
87system call will fail if:
88.Bl -tag -width Er
89.It Bq Er EFAULT
90An argument points outside the process's allocated address space.
91.It Bq Er EPERM
92The process's effective user ID is not that of the super-user.
93.El
94.Sh SEE ALSO
95.Xr date 1 ,
96.Xr gettimeofday 2
97.Rs
98.%T "TSP: The Time Synchronization Protocol for UNIX 4.3BSD"
99.%A R. Gusella
100.%A S. Zatti
101.Re
102.Sh HISTORY
103The
104.Fn adjtime
105system call appeared in
106.Bx 4.3 .
107