xref: /freebsd/share/man/man9/hardclock.9 (revision f7c32ed617858bcd22f8d1b03199099d50125721)
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30.Dd July 1, 2021
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.Va cnt
48argument reports an estimate of the number of ticks since the last call.
49The sum of
50.Va cnt
51over a second averages
52.Va hz
53over the long haul.
54See
55.Xr hz 9
56for important details over shorter time scales.
57The argument
58.Va usermode
59is none-zero when
60.Fn hardclock
61is called from an context that interrupted usermode execution.
62.Pp
63.Fn hardclock
64may perform different tasks such as:
65.Bl -bullet -offset indent
66.It
67Run the current process's virtual and profile time (decrease the
68corresponding timers, if they are activated, and generate
69.Li SIGVTALRM
70or
71.Li SIGPROF ,
72respectively).
73.It
74Increment the time-of-day, taking care of any
75.Xr ntpd 8
76or
77.Xr adjtime 2
78induced changes and leap seconds, as well as any necessary
79compensations to keep in sync with PPS signals or external clocks, if
80support for this is in the kernel (see
81.Xr options 4 ) .
82.It
83Schedule softclock interrupts (
84.Xr swi 9 )
85processing.
86.It
87Collect
88.Xr hwpmc 4
89statistics.
90.It
91Do device polling, when enabled.
92.It
93Implement software
94.Xr watchdog 9
95processing.
96.It
97Enqueue
98.Xr epoch 9
99processing.
100.El
101.Sh SEE ALSO
102.Xr adjtime 2 ,
103.Xr ntp_adjtime 2 ,
104.Xr signal 3 ,
105.Xr ntpd 8 ,
106.Xr hz 9
107