xref: /freebsd/lib/libsys/adjtime.2 (revision a91a246563dffa876a52f53a98de4af9fa364c52)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991, 1993
2.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
6.\" are met:
7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
8.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
10.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
11.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
12.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
13.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
14.\"    without specific prior written permission.
15.\"
16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
26.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
27.\"
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