On 11/03/09 19:25, Leslie Turriff wrote:
On Tuesday 03 November 2009 20:09:49 Paul Gilmartin wrote:
On 11/03/09 17:42, Leslie Turriff wrote:
Philosophical question: Has anyone posted a requirement to SHARE or
some such to get an interface to an NTP source into the firmware so that
the TOD clock can be synchronized to a reliable source (other than the
operator's wristwatch or the computer room's wall clock)?
I've wondered about that ever since Linux-390 happened. :-)
Often discussed on IBM-MAIN. IBM's position appears to be, "We have
a [S]NTP server, but our clocks, with STP, synched to NIST, etc. are so
much better than any others that it would be inappropriate for us to
be an NTP client." IBM doesn't get a very good grade in "Plays well with
others", IMO.
But that sounds to me like a different issue. Does that, in fact, provide
the capability for the machine to obtain an accurate TOD value from some
external NTPish source, without operator intervention?
May I paraphrase: "We don't need no steenkin external NTPish source!"
I don't know what Linux-390 does. I'd be inclined let the TOD clock
do whatever it damned well pleases, create a software clock in the kernel,
and let NTP steer the offset between that and the physical TOD. But
that would glitch badly whenever the hardware clock was reset to the
correct time.
-- gil
