xref: /netbsd/lib/libc/sys/adjtime.2 (revision 6550d01e)
1.\"	$NetBSD: adjtime.2,v 1.20 2004/05/13 10:20:57 wiz Exp $
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30.\"     @(#)adjtime.2	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
31.\"
32.Dd June 4, 1993
33.Dt ADJTIME 2
34.Os
35.Sh NAME
36.Nm adjtime
37.Nd "correct the time to allow synchronization of the system clock"
38.Sh LIBRARY
39.Lb libc
40.Sh SYNOPSIS
41.In sys/time.h
42.Ft int
43.Fn adjtime "const struct timeval *delta" "struct timeval *olddelta"
44.Sh DESCRIPTION
45.Fn adjtime
46makes small adjustments to the system time, as returned by
47.Xr gettimeofday 2 ,
48advancing or retarding it
49by the time specified by the timeval
50.Fa delta .
51If
52.Fa delta
53is negative, the clock is
54slowed down by incrementing it more slowly than normal until
55the correction is complete.
56If
57.Fa delta
58is positive, a larger increment than normal
59is used.
60The skew used to perform the correction is generally a fraction of one percent.
61Thus, the time is always
62a monotonically increasing function.
63A time correction from an earlier call to
64.Fn adjtime
65may not be finished when
66.Fn adjtime
67is called again.
68If
69.Fa olddelta
70is non-nil,
71the structure pointed to will contain, upon return, the
72number of microseconds still to be corrected
73from the earlier call.
74.Pp
75This call may be used by time servers that synchronize the clocks
76of computers in a local area network.
77Such time servers would slow down the clocks of some machines
78and speed up the clocks of others to bring them to the average network time.
79.Pp
80If the calling user is not the super user, then the
81.Fn adjtime
82function in the standard C library will try to use the
83.Xr clockctl 4
84device if present, thus making possible for non privileged users to
85adjust the system time.
86If
87.Xr clockctl 4
88is not present or not accessible, then
89.Fn adjtime
90reverts to the
91.Fn adjtime
92system call, which is restricted to the super user.
93.Sh RETURN VALUES
94A return value of 0 indicates that the call succeeded.
95A return value of \-1 indicates that an error occurred, and in this
96case an error code is stored in the global variable
97.Va errno .
98.Sh ERRORS
99.Fn adjtime
100will fail if:
101.Bl -tag -width Er
102.It Bq Er EFAULT
103An argument points outside the process's allocated address space.
104.It Bq Er EPERM
105The process's effective user ID is not that of the super user.
106.El
107.Sh SEE ALSO
108.Xr date 1 ,
109.Xr gettimeofday 2 ,
110.Xr clockctl 4 ,
111.Xr timed 8 ,
112.Xr timedc 8
113.Rs
114.%T "TSP: The Time Synchronization Protocol for UNIX 4.3BSD"
115.%A R. Gusella
116.%A S. Zatti
117.Re
118.Sh HISTORY
119The
120.Fn adjtime
121function call appeared in
122.Bx 4.3 .
123