xref: /freebsd-13.1/lib/libc/sys/adjtime.2 (revision fbbd9655)
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28.\"     @(#)adjtime.2	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
29.\" $FreeBSD$
30.\"
31.Dd June 4, 1993
32.Dt ADJTIME 2
33.Os
34.Sh NAME
35.Nm adjtime
36.Nd "correct the time to allow synchronization of the system clock"
37.Sh LIBRARY
38.Lb libc
39.Sh SYNOPSIS
40.In sys/time.h
41.Ft int
42.Fn adjtime "const struct timeval *delta" "struct timeval *olddelta"
43.Sh DESCRIPTION
44The
45.Fn adjtime
46system call
47makes small adjustments to the system time, as returned by
48.Xr gettimeofday 2 ,
49advancing or retarding it
50by the time specified by the timeval
51.Fa delta .
52If
53.Fa delta
54is negative, the clock is
55slowed down by incrementing it more slowly than normal until
56the correction is complete.
57If
58.Fa delta
59is positive, a larger increment than normal
60is used.
61The skew used to perform the correction is generally a fraction of one percent.
62Thus, the time is always
63a monotonically increasing function.
64A time correction from an earlier call to
65.Fn adjtime
66may not be finished when
67.Fn adjtime
68is called again.
69If
70.Fa olddelta
71is not a null pointer,
72the structure pointed to will contain, upon return, the
73number of microseconds still to be corrected
74from the earlier call.
75.Pp
76This call may be used by time servers that synchronize the clocks
77of computers in a local area network.
78Such time servers would slow down the clocks of some machines
79and speed up the clocks of others to bring them to the average network time.
80.Pp
81The
82.Fn adjtime
83system call
84is restricted to the super-user.
85.Sh RETURN VALUES
86.Rv -std adjtime
87.Sh ERRORS
88The
89.Fn adjtime
90system call will fail if:
91.Bl -tag -width Er
92.It Bq Er EFAULT
93An argument points outside the process's allocated address space.
94.It Bq Er EPERM
95The process's effective user ID is not that of the super-user.
96.El
97.Sh SEE ALSO
98.Xr date 1 ,
99.Xr gettimeofday 2 ,
100.Xr timed 8 ,
101.Xr timedc 8
102.Rs
103.%T "TSP: The Time Synchronization Protocol for UNIX 4.3BSD"
104.%A R. Gusella
105.%A S. Zatti
106.Re
107.Sh HISTORY
108The
109.Fn adjtime
110system call appeared in
111.Bx 4.3 .
112