xref: /freebsd-14.2/lib/libc/sys/adjtime.2 (revision b2c76c41)
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28.\"     @(#)adjtime.2	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
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30.Dd May 13, 2021
31.Dt ADJTIME 2
32.Os
33.Sh NAME
34.Nm adjtime
35.Nd "correct the time to allow synchronization of the system clock"
36.Sh LIBRARY
37.Lb libc
38.Sh SYNOPSIS
39.In sys/time.h
40.Ft int
41.Fn adjtime "const struct timeval *delta" "struct timeval *olddelta"
42.Sh DESCRIPTION
43The
44.Fn adjtime
45system call
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 not a null pointer,
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
80The
81.Fn adjtime
82system call
83is restricted to the super-user.
84.Sh RETURN VALUES
85.Rv -std adjtime
86.Sh ERRORS
87The
88.Fn adjtime
89system call will fail if:
90.Bl -tag -width Er
91.It Bq Er EFAULT
92An argument points outside the process's allocated address space.
93.It Bq Er EPERM
94The process's effective user ID is not that of the super-user.
95.El
96.Sh SEE ALSO
97.Xr date 1 ,
98.Xr gettimeofday 2
99.Rs
100.%T "TSP: The Time Synchronization Protocol for UNIX 4.3BSD"
101.%A R. Gusella
102.%A S. Zatti
103.Re
104.Sh HISTORY
105The
106.Fn adjtime
107system call appeared in
108.Bx 4.3 .
109