xref: /freebsd/share/man/man9/hardclock.9 (revision 031beb4e239bfce798af17f5fe8dba8bcaf13d99)
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30.Dd February 27, 2023
31.Dt HARDCLOCK 9
32.Os
33.Sh NAME
34.Nm hardclock
35.Nd real-time timer
36.Sh SYNOPSIS
37.Ft void
38.Fn hardclock "int cnt" "int usermode"
39.Sh DESCRIPTION
40The
41.Fn hardclock
42function is called periodically based on pending work.
43The rate ranges from
44.Va hz
45times per second on a very busy system, to twice a second on an idle system.
46The
47.Fa cnt
48argument reports an estimate of the number of ticks since the last call.
49Over long timescales, the average sum of
50.Fa cnt
51over one second is
52.Va hz .
53See
54.Xr hz 9
55for important details over shorter time scales.
56The
57.Fa usermode
58argument is non-zero when
59.Fn hardclock
60is called from an context that interrupted usermode execution.
61.Pp
62.Fn hardclock
63may perform different tasks such as:
64.Bl -bullet -offset indent
65.It
66Run the current process's virtual and profile time (decrease the
67corresponding timers, if they are activated, and generate
68.Li SIGVTALRM
69or
70.Li SIGPROF ,
71respectively).
72.It
73Increment the time-of-day, taking care of any
74.Xr ntpd 8
75or
76.Xr adjtime 2
77induced changes and leap seconds, as well as any necessary
78compensations to keep in sync with PPS signals or external clocks, if
79supported by the kernel.
80.It
81Schedule softclock interrupts
82.Po
83.Xr swi 9
84.Pc
85processing.
86.It
87Collect
88.Xr hwpmc 4
89statistics.
90.It
91Do device polling, when enabled
92.Po
93see
94.Xr polling 4
95.Pc .
96.It
97Implement software
98.Xr watchdog 9
99processing.
100.It
101Enqueue
102.Xr epoch 9
103processing.
104.El
105.Sh SEE ALSO
106.Xr adjtime 2 ,
107.Xr ntp_adjtime 2 ,
108.Xr signal 3 ,
109.Xr hwpmc 4 ,
110.Xr polling 4 ,
111.Xr ntpd 8 ,
112.Xr epoch 9 ,
113.Xr eventtimers 9 ,
114.Xr hz 9 ,
115.Xr swi 9 ,
116.Xr watchdog 9
117