xref: /dragonfly/share/man/man9/inittodr.9 (revision 9dbf638f)
1.\"	$NetBSD: inittodr.9,v 1.2 1996/03/27 21:16:06 jtc Exp $
2.\"
3.\" Copyright (c) 1994 Christopher G. Demetriou
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5.\"
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7.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
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16.\"      This product includes software developed by Christopher G. Demetriou
17.\"      for the NetBSD Project.
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32.\" $FreeBSD: src/share/man/man9/inittodr.9,v 1.4.2.4 2001/12/17 11:30:18 ru Exp $
33.\" $DragonFly: src/share/man/man9/inittodr.9,v 1.2 2003/06/17 04:37:01 dillon Exp $
34.\"
35.Dd March 22, 1997
36.Dt INITTODR 9
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm inittodr
40.Nd initialize system time
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.In sys/types.h
43.In sys/systm.h
44.Ft void
45.Fn inittodr "time_t base"
46.Sh DESCRIPTION
47The
48.Fn inittodr
49function determines the time and sets the system clock.
50It tries to pick the correct time using a set of heuristics that examine
51the system's battery backed clock and the time obtained from the root
52file system, as given in
53.Fa base .
54How the
55.Fa base
56value is obtained will vary depending on the
57root file system type.
58The heuristics used include:
59.Bl -bullet
60.It
61If the battery-backed clock has a valid time, it is used.
62.\" .It
63.\" If the battery-backed clock does not have a valid time, and
64.\" the time provided in
65.\" .Fa base
66.\" is within reason,
67.\" .Fa base
68.\" is used as the current time.
69.\" .It
70.\" If the battery-backed clock appears invalid, and
71.\" .Fa base
72.\" appears non-sensical or was not provided (was given as zero),
73.\" a arbitrary base (typically some time in the late 1970s)
74.\" will be used.
75.It
76If the battery-backed clock does not have a valid time,
77the time provided in
78.Fa base
79will be used.
80.El
81.Pp
82Once a system time has been determined, it is stored in the
83.Va time
84variable.
85.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
86The
87.Fn inittodr
88function prints diagnostic messages if it has trouble figuring
89out the system time.  Conditions that can cause diagnostic
90messages to be printed include:
91.Bl -bullet
92.It
93The battery-backed clock's time appears nonsensical.
94.\" .It
95.\" The
96.\" .Fa base
97.\" time appears nonsensical.
98.\" .It
99.\" The
100.\" .Fa base
101.\" time and the battery-backed clock's time differ by a large amount.
102.El
103.Sh SEE ALSO
104.Xr resettodr 9 ,
105.Xr time 9
106.Sh BUGS
107On many systems,
108.Fn inittodr
109has to convert from
110a time expressed in terms of year, month, day, hours, minutes,
111and seconds to
112.Va time ,
113expressed in seconds.  Many of the implementations could share code,
114but do not.
115.Pp
116Each system's heuristics for picking the correct time are slightly
117different.
118.Pp
119The
120.Fx
121implementation should do a better job of validating the time provided in
122.Fa base
123when the battery-backed clock is unusable.  Currently it unconditionally
124sets the system clock to this value.
125