xref: /freebsd/share/man/man9/inittodr.9 (revision dd41de95a84d979615a2ef11df6850622bf6184e)
1.\"	$NetBSD: inittodr.9,v 1.2 1996/03/27 21:16:06 jtc Exp $
2.\"
3.\" Copyright (c) 1994 Christopher G. Demetriou
4.\" All rights reserved.
5.\"
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7.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
8.\" are met:
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11.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
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13.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
14.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
15.\"    must display the following acknowledgement:
16.\"      This product includes software developed by Christopher G. Demetriou
17.\"      for the NetBSD Project.
18.\" 3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products
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32.\" $FreeBSD$
33.\"
34.Dd March 22, 1997
35.Dt INITTODR 9
36.Os
37.Sh NAME
38.Nm inittodr
39.Nd initialize system time
40.Sh SYNOPSIS
41.In sys/types.h
42.In sys/systm.h
43.Ft void
44.Fn inittodr "time_t base"
45.Sh DESCRIPTION
46The
47.Fn inittodr
48function determines the time and sets the system clock.
49It tries to pick the correct time using a set of heuristics that examine
50the system's battery backed clock and the time obtained from the root
51file system, as given in
52.Fa base .
53How the
54.Fa base
55value is obtained will vary depending on the
56root file system type.
57The heuristics used include:
58.Bl -bullet
59.It
60If the battery-backed clock has a valid time, it is used.
61.\" .It
62.\" If the battery-backed clock does not have a valid time, and
63.\" the time provided in
64.\" .Fa base
65.\" is within reason,
66.\" .Fa base
67.\" is used as the current time.
68.\" .It
69.\" If the battery-backed clock appears invalid, and
70.\" .Fa base
71.\" appears non-sensical or was not provided (was given as zero),
72.\" a arbitrary base (typically some time in the late 1970s)
73.\" will be used.
74.It
75If the battery-backed clock does not have a valid time,
76the time provided in
77.Fa base
78will be used.
79.El
80.Pp
81Once a system time has been determined, it is stored in the
82.Va time
83variable.
84.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
85The
86.Fn inittodr
87function prints diagnostic messages if it has trouble figuring
88out the system time.
89Conditions that can cause diagnostic messages to be printed include:
90.Bl -bullet
91.It
92The battery-backed clock's time appears nonsensical.
93.\" .It
94.\" The
95.\" .Fa base
96.\" time appears nonsensical.
97.\" .It
98.\" The
99.\" .Fa base
100.\" time and the battery-backed clock's time differ by a large amount.
101.El
102.Sh SEE ALSO
103.Xr resettodr 9 ,
104.Xr time 9
105.Sh BUGS
106On many systems,
107.Fn inittodr
108has to convert from
109a time expressed in terms of year, month, day, hours, minutes,
110and seconds to
111.Va time ,
112expressed in seconds.
113Many of the implementations could share code, but do not.
114.Pp
115Each system's heuristics for picking the correct time are slightly
116different.
117.Pp
118The
119.Fx
120implementation should do a better job of validating the time provided in
121.Fa base
122when the battery-backed clock is unusable.
123Currently it unconditionally sets the system clock to this value.
124