Re: system time on red hat linux

[Bob Proulx]

> Sorry if I have misdirected this question...  Whenever I reboot my  machine
> the system time is reset to some random time (the system date is
> unaffected). I use the "date" command to change it back to the correct time
> but then it happens again when I reboot.
> 
> Why is this happening?

Redhat calls /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit at boot time which sets the system
time from the hardware clock.  It uses the hwclock program to do the
work.  Check out the man page on hwclock (or the older clock) program
for information on that.  In fact read that man page in general since
it contains much useful general purpose information about your clock.

You can call this command interactively to query the clock.

  hwclock --show # add --utc if you keep your clock in utc time

The hardware clock normally has a battery and operates like a
wristwatch.  If your hardware clock time is drifting and generating
random times then perhaps your battery has failed.

If you are at least sometimes connected to the Internet then you can
use NTP to keep your clock corrected.  For information on NTP see the
following location.

  http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~ntp/

Bob Proulx