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author | Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab+samsung@kernel.org> | 2019-06-27 20:56:51 +0300 |
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committer | Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab+samsung@kernel.org> | 2019-07-15 17:03:02 +0300 |
commit | 4f4cfa6c560c93ba180c30675cf845e1597de44c (patch) | |
tree | 0bbe2ec9e6ef62ed2a347504dda50c6bdbe43703 /Documentation/rtc.txt | |
parent | da82c92f1150f66afabf78d2c85ef9ac18dc6d38 (diff) | |
download | linux-4f4cfa6c560c93ba180c30675cf845e1597de44c.tar.xz |
docs: admin-guide: add a series of orphaned documents
There are lots of documents that belong to the admin-guide but
are on random places (most under Documentation root dir).
Move them to the admin guide.
Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab+samsung@kernel.org>
Acked-by: Alexandre Belloni <alexandre.belloni@bootlin.com>
Acked-by: Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz <b.zolnierkie@samsung.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/rtc.txt')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/rtc.txt | 140 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 140 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/rtc.txt b/Documentation/rtc.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 688c95b11919..000000000000 --- a/Documentation/rtc.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,140 +0,0 @@ -======================================= -Real Time Clock (RTC) Drivers for Linux -======================================= - -When Linux developers talk about a "Real Time Clock", they usually mean -something that tracks wall clock time and is battery backed so that it -works even with system power off. Such clocks will normally not track -the local time zone or daylight savings time -- unless they dual boot -with MS-Windows -- but will instead be set to Coordinated Universal Time -(UTC, formerly "Greenwich Mean Time"). - -The newest non-PC hardware tends to just count seconds, like the time(2) -system call reports, but RTCs also very commonly represent time using -the Gregorian calendar and 24 hour time, as reported by gmtime(3). - -Linux has two largely-compatible userspace RTC API families you may -need to know about: - - * /dev/rtc ... is the RTC provided by PC compatible systems, - so it's not very portable to non-x86 systems. - - * /dev/rtc0, /dev/rtc1 ... are part of a framework that's - supported by a wide variety of RTC chips on all systems. - -Programmers need to understand that the PC/AT functionality is not -always available, and some systems can do much more. That is, the -RTCs use the same API to make requests in both RTC frameworks (using -different filenames of course), but the hardware may not offer the -same functionality. For example, not every RTC is hooked up to an -IRQ, so they can't all issue alarms; and where standard PC RTCs can -only issue an alarm up to 24 hours in the future, other hardware may -be able to schedule one any time in the upcoming century. - - -Old PC/AT-Compatible driver: /dev/rtc --------------------------------------- - -All PCs (even Alpha machines) have a Real Time Clock built into them. -Usually they are built into the chipset of the computer, but some may -actually have a Motorola MC146818 (or clone) on the board. This is the -clock that keeps the date and time while your computer is turned off. - -ACPI has standardized that MC146818 functionality, and extended it in -a few ways (enabling longer alarm periods, and wake-from-hibernate). -That functionality is NOT exposed in the old driver. - -However it can also be used to generate signals from a slow 2Hz to a -relatively fast 8192Hz, in increments of powers of two. These signals -are reported by interrupt number 8. (Oh! So *that* is what IRQ 8 is -for...) It can also function as a 24hr alarm, raising IRQ 8 when the -alarm goes off. The alarm can also be programmed to only check any -subset of the three programmable values, meaning that it could be set to -ring on the 30th second of the 30th minute of every hour, for example. -The clock can also be set to generate an interrupt upon every clock -update, thus generating a 1Hz signal. - -The interrupts are reported via /dev/rtc (major 10, minor 135, read only -character device) in the form of an unsigned long. The low byte contains -the type of interrupt (update-done, alarm-rang, or periodic) that was -raised, and the remaining bytes contain the number of interrupts since -the last read. Status information is reported through the pseudo-file -/proc/driver/rtc if the /proc filesystem was enabled. The driver has -built in locking so that only one process is allowed to have the /dev/rtc -interface open at a time. - -A user process can monitor these interrupts by doing a read(2) or a -select(2) on /dev/rtc -- either will block/stop the user process until -the next interrupt is received. This is useful for things like -reasonably high frequency data acquisition where one doesn't want to -burn up 100% CPU by polling gettimeofday etc. etc. - -At high frequencies, or under high loads, the user process should check -the number of interrupts received since the last read to determine if -there has been any interrupt "pileup" so to speak. Just for reference, a -typical 486-33 running a tight read loop on /dev/rtc will start to suffer -occasional interrupt pileup (i.e. > 1 IRQ event since last read) for -frequencies above 1024Hz. So you really should check the high bytes -of the value you read, especially at frequencies above that of the -normal timer interrupt, which is 100Hz. - -Programming and/or enabling interrupt frequencies greater than 64Hz is -only allowed by root. This is perhaps a bit conservative, but we don't want -an evil user generating lots of IRQs on a slow 386sx-16, where it might have -a negative impact on performance. This 64Hz limit can be changed by writing -a different value to /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq. Note that the -interrupt handler is only a few lines of code to minimize any possibility -of this effect. - -Also, if the kernel time is synchronized with an external source, the -kernel will write the time back to the CMOS clock every 11 minutes. In -the process of doing this, the kernel briefly turns off RTC periodic -interrupts, so be aware of this if you are doing serious work. If you -don't synchronize the kernel time with an external source (via ntp or -whatever) then the kernel will keep its hands off the RTC, allowing you -exclusive access to the device for your applications. - -The alarm and/or interrupt frequency are programmed into the RTC via -various ioctl(2) calls as listed in ./include/linux/rtc.h -Rather than write 50 pages describing the ioctl() and so on, it is -perhaps more useful to include a small test program that demonstrates -how to use them, and demonstrates the features of the driver. This is -probably a lot more useful to people interested in writing applications -that will be using this driver. See the code at the end of this document. - -(The original /dev/rtc driver was written by Paul Gortmaker.) - - -New portable "RTC Class" drivers: /dev/rtcN --------------------------------------------- - -Because Linux supports many non-ACPI and non-PC platforms, some of which -have more than one RTC style clock, it needed a more portable solution -than expecting a single battery-backed MC146818 clone on every system. -Accordingly, a new "RTC Class" framework has been defined. It offers -three different userspace interfaces: - - * /dev/rtcN ... much the same as the older /dev/rtc interface - - * /sys/class/rtc/rtcN ... sysfs attributes support readonly - access to some RTC attributes. - - * /proc/driver/rtc ... the system clock RTC may expose itself - using a procfs interface. If there is no RTC for the system clock, - rtc0 is used by default. More information is (currently) shown - here than through sysfs. - -The RTC Class framework supports a wide variety of RTCs, ranging from those -integrated into embeddable system-on-chip (SOC) processors to discrete chips -using I2C, SPI, or some other bus to communicate with the host CPU. There's -even support for PC-style RTCs ... including the features exposed on newer PCs -through ACPI. - -The new framework also removes the "one RTC per system" restriction. For -example, maybe the low-power battery-backed RTC is a discrete I2C chip, but -a high functionality RTC is integrated into the SOC. That system might read -the system clock from the discrete RTC, but use the integrated one for all -other tasks, because of its greater functionality. - -Check out tools/testing/selftests/rtc/rtctest.c for an example usage of the -ioctl interface. |