[Wylug-help] Software clock drift

[Jim Jackson]

On Mon, 20 Jun 2005, Dave Brotherstone wrote:

> Hi all,
>  My main desktop linux box has suddenly started drifting in time - it
> lost just under 17 minutes today.  The only thing I've just done is
> upgraded the kernel to 2.6.11, from 2.4.21.  It's permanently on, so I
> don't think it's a hardware thing, but I'm not sure how often, if
> ever, linux sync's the software clock...
>
> Distribution is gentoo.  Kernel is gentoo-sources for 2.6.11-r4.  AMD
> Athlon XP1800.
>
> Any pointers?  Before I setup ntpd ;)

adjtimex

allows you to fine tune the system clock. You can fine tune it pretty 
well. I have one system that is tuned to maintain a time accuracy of aprox 
1 sec in 6 days. I ran ntpd for over a day to let it "sync" (it can take 
some time), and used adjtimex to read the system clock parameters. You can 
then stop ntpd, and add a suitable adjtimex command to set the right 
paramters on startup.

hwclock is usually used to sync the hardware clock and system clock.
I suspect A lot of systems only ever sync these on startup and shut down.

Jim



>
> Many thanks,
>
> Dave.
>
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