diff options
author | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org> | 2005-04-16 18:20:36 -0400 |
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committer | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org> | 2005-04-16 18:20:36 -0400 |
commit | 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 (patch) | |
tree | 0bba044c4ce775e45a88a51686b5d9f90697ea9d /Documentation/rtc.txt |
Linux-2.6.12-rc2
Initial git repository build. I'm not bothering with the full history,
even though we have it. We can create a separate "historical" git
archive of that later if we want to, and in the meantime it's about
3.2GB when imported into git - space that would just make the early
git days unnecessarily complicated, when we don't have a lot of good
infrastructure for it.
Let it rip!
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/rtc.txt')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/rtc.txt | 282 |
1 files changed, 282 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/rtc.txt b/Documentation/rtc.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..95d17b3e2eee --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/rtc.txt | |||
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1 | |||
2 | Real Time Clock Driver for Linux | ||
3 | ================================ | ||
4 | |||
5 | All PCs (even Alpha machines) have a Real Time Clock built into them. | ||
6 | Usually they are built into the chipset of the computer, but some may | ||
7 | actually have a Motorola MC146818 (or clone) on the board. This is the | ||
8 | clock that keeps the date and time while your computer is turned off. | ||
9 | |||
10 | However it can also be used to generate signals from a slow 2Hz to a | ||
11 | relatively fast 8192Hz, in increments of powers of two. These signals | ||
12 | are reported by interrupt number 8. (Oh! So *that* is what IRQ 8 is | ||
13 | for...) It can also function as a 24hr alarm, raising IRQ 8 when the | ||
14 | alarm goes off. The alarm can also be programmed to only check any | ||
15 | subset of the three programmable values, meaning that it could be set to | ||
16 | ring on the 30th second of the 30th minute of every hour, for example. | ||
17 | The clock can also be set to generate an interrupt upon every clock | ||
18 | update, thus generating a 1Hz signal. | ||
19 | |||
20 | The interrupts are reported via /dev/rtc (major 10, minor 135, read only | ||
21 | character device) in the form of an unsigned long. The low byte contains | ||
22 | the type of interrupt (update-done, alarm-rang, or periodic) that was | ||
23 | raised, and the remaining bytes contain the number of interrupts since | ||
24 | the last read. Status information is reported through the pseudo-file | ||
25 | /proc/driver/rtc if the /proc filesystem was enabled. The driver has | ||
26 | built in locking so that only one process is allowed to have the /dev/rtc | ||
27 | interface open at a time. | ||
28 | |||
29 | A user process can monitor these interrupts by doing a read(2) or a | ||
30 | select(2) on /dev/rtc -- either will block/stop the user process until | ||
31 | the next interrupt is received. This is useful for things like | ||
32 | reasonably high frequency data acquisition where one doesn't want to | ||
33 | burn up 100% CPU by polling gettimeofday etc. etc. | ||
34 | |||
35 | At high frequencies, or under high loads, the user process should check | ||
36 | the number of interrupts received since the last read to determine if | ||
37 | there has been any interrupt "pileup" so to speak. Just for reference, a | ||
38 | typical 486-33 running a tight read loop on /dev/rtc will start to suffer | ||
39 | occasional interrupt pileup (i.e. > 1 IRQ event since last read) for | ||
40 | frequencies above 1024Hz. So you really should check the high bytes | ||
41 | of the value you read, especially at frequencies above that of the | ||
42 | normal timer interrupt, which is 100Hz. | ||
43 | |||
44 | Programming and/or enabling interrupt frequencies greater than 64Hz is | ||
45 | only allowed by root. This is perhaps a bit conservative, but we don't want | ||
46 | an evil user generating lots of IRQs on a slow 386sx-16, where it might have | ||
47 | a negative impact on performance. Note that the interrupt handler is only | ||
48 | a few lines of code to minimize any possibility of this effect. | ||
49 | |||
50 | Also, if the kernel time is synchronized with an external source, the | ||
51 | kernel will write the time back to the CMOS clock every 11 minutes. In | ||
52 | the process of doing this, the kernel briefly turns off RTC periodic | ||
53 | interrupts, so be aware of this if you are doing serious work. If you | ||
54 | don't synchronize the kernel time with an external source (via ntp or | ||
55 | whatever) then the kernel will keep its hands off the RTC, allowing you | ||
56 | exclusive access to the device for your applications. | ||
57 | |||
58 | The alarm and/or interrupt frequency are programmed into the RTC via | ||
59 | various ioctl(2) calls as listed in ./include/linux/rtc.h | ||
60 | Rather than write 50 pages describing the ioctl() and so on, it is | ||
61 | perhaps more useful to include a small test program that demonstrates | ||
62 | how to use them, and demonstrates the features of the driver. This is | ||
63 | probably a lot more useful to people interested in writing applications | ||
64 | that will be using this driver. | ||
65 | |||
66 | Paul Gortmaker | ||
67 | |||
68 | -------------------- 8< ---------------- 8< ----------------------------- | ||
69 | |||
70 | /* | ||
71 | * Real Time Clock Driver Test/Example Program | ||
72 | * | ||
73 | * Compile with: | ||
74 | * gcc -s -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes rtctest.c -o rtctest | ||
75 | * | ||
76 | * Copyright (C) 1996, Paul Gortmaker. | ||
77 | * | ||
78 | * Released under the GNU General Public License, version 2, | ||
79 | * included herein by reference. | ||
80 | * | ||
81 | */ | ||
82 | |||
83 | #include <stdio.h> | ||
84 | #include <linux/rtc.h> | ||
85 | #include <sys/ioctl.h> | ||
86 | #include <sys/time.h> | ||
87 | #include <sys/types.h> | ||
88 | #include <fcntl.h> | ||
89 | #include <unistd.h> | ||
90 | #include <errno.h> | ||
91 | |||
92 | int main(void) { | ||
93 | |||
94 | int i, fd, retval, irqcount = 0; | ||
95 | unsigned long tmp, data; | ||
96 | struct rtc_time rtc_tm; | ||
97 | |||
98 | fd = open ("/dev/rtc", O_RDONLY); | ||
99 | |||
100 | if (fd == -1) { | ||
101 | perror("/dev/rtc"); | ||
102 | exit(errno); | ||
103 | } | ||
104 | |||
105 | fprintf(stderr, "\n\t\t\tRTC Driver Test Example.\n\n"); | ||
106 | |||
107 | /* Turn on update interrupts (one per second) */ | ||
108 | retval = ioctl(fd, RTC_UIE_ON, 0); | ||
109 | if (retval == -1) { | ||
110 | perror("ioctl"); | ||
111 | exit(errno); | ||
112 | } | ||
113 | |||
114 | fprintf(stderr, "Counting 5 update (1/sec) interrupts from reading /dev/rtc:"); | ||
115 | fflush(stderr); | ||
116 | for (i=1; i<6; i++) { | ||
117 | /* This read will block */ | ||
118 | retval = read(fd, &data, sizeof(unsigned long)); | ||
119 | if (retval == -1) { | ||
120 | perror("read"); | ||
121 | exit(errno); | ||
122 | } | ||
123 | fprintf(stderr, " %d",i); | ||
124 | fflush(stderr); | ||
125 | irqcount++; | ||
126 | } | ||
127 | |||
128 | fprintf(stderr, "\nAgain, from using select(2) on /dev/rtc:"); | ||
129 | fflush(stderr); | ||
130 | for (i=1; i<6; i++) { | ||
131 | struct timeval tv = {5, 0}; /* 5 second timeout on select */ | ||
132 | fd_set readfds; | ||
133 | |||
134 | FD_ZERO(&readfds); | ||
135 | FD_SET(fd, &readfds); | ||
136 | /* The select will wait until an RTC interrupt happens. */ | ||
137 | retval = select(fd+1, &readfds, NULL, NULL, &tv); | ||
138 | if (retval == -1) { | ||
139 | perror("select"); | ||
140 | exit(errno); | ||
141 | } | ||
142 | /* This read won't block unlike the select-less case above. */ | ||
143 | retval = read(fd, &data, sizeof(unsigned long)); | ||
144 | if (retval == -1) { | ||
145 | perror("read"); | ||
146 | exit(errno); | ||
147 | } | ||
148 | fprintf(stderr, " %d",i); | ||
149 | fflush(stderr); | ||
150 | irqcount++; | ||
151 | } | ||
152 | |||
153 | /* Turn off update interrupts */ | ||
154 | retval = ioctl(fd, RTC_UIE_OFF, 0); | ||
155 | if (retval == -1) { | ||
156 | perror("ioctl"); | ||
157 | exit(errno); | ||
158 | } | ||
159 | |||
160 | /* Read the RTC time/date */ | ||
161 | retval = ioctl(fd, RTC_RD_TIME, &rtc_tm); | ||
162 | if (retval == -1) { | ||
163 | perror("ioctl"); | ||
164 | exit(errno); | ||
165 | } | ||
166 | |||
167 | fprintf(stderr, "\n\nCurrent RTC date/time is %d-%d-%d, %02d:%02d:%02d.\n", | ||
168 | rtc_tm.tm_mday, rtc_tm.tm_mon + 1, rtc_tm.tm_year + 1900, | ||
169 | rtc_tm.tm_hour, rtc_tm.tm_min, rtc_tm.tm_sec); | ||
170 | |||
171 | /* Set the alarm to 5 sec in the future, and check for rollover */ | ||
172 | rtc_tm.tm_sec += 5; | ||
173 | if (rtc_tm.tm_sec >= 60) { | ||
174 | rtc_tm.tm_sec %= 60; | ||
175 | rtc_tm.tm_min++; | ||
176 | } | ||
177 | if (rtc_tm.tm_min == 60) { | ||
178 | rtc_tm.tm_min = 0; | ||
179 | rtc_tm.tm_hour++; | ||
180 | } | ||
181 | if (rtc_tm.tm_hour == 24) | ||
182 | rtc_tm.tm_hour = 0; | ||
183 | |||
184 | retval = ioctl(fd, RTC_ALM_SET, &rtc_tm); | ||
185 | if (retval == -1) { | ||
186 | perror("ioctl"); | ||
187 | exit(errno); | ||
188 | } | ||
189 | |||
190 | /* Read the current alarm settings */ | ||
191 | retval = ioctl(fd, RTC_ALM_READ, &rtc_tm); | ||
192 | if (retval == -1) { | ||
193 | perror("ioctl"); | ||
194 | exit(errno); | ||
195 | } | ||
196 | |||
197 | fprintf(stderr, "Alarm time now set to %02d:%02d:%02d.\n", | ||
198 | rtc_tm.tm_hour, rtc_tm.tm_min, rtc_tm.tm_sec); | ||
199 | |||
200 | /* Enable alarm interrupts */ | ||
201 | retval = ioctl(fd, RTC_AIE_ON, 0); | ||
202 | if (retval == -1) { | ||
203 | perror("ioctl"); | ||
204 | exit(errno); | ||
205 | } | ||
206 | |||
207 | fprintf(stderr, "Waiting 5 seconds for alarm..."); | ||
208 | fflush(stderr); | ||
209 | /* This blocks until the alarm ring causes an interrupt */ | ||
210 | retval = read(fd, &data, sizeof(unsigned long)); | ||
211 | if (retval == -1) { | ||
212 | perror("read"); | ||
213 | exit(errno); | ||
214 | } | ||
215 | irqcount++; | ||
216 | fprintf(stderr, " okay. Alarm rang.\n"); | ||
217 | |||
218 | /* Disable alarm interrupts */ | ||
219 | retval = ioctl(fd, RTC_AIE_OFF, 0); | ||
220 | if (retval == -1) { | ||
221 | perror("ioctl"); | ||
222 | exit(errno); | ||
223 | } | ||
224 | |||
225 | /* Read periodic IRQ rate */ | ||
226 | retval = ioctl(fd, RTC_IRQP_READ, &tmp); | ||
227 | if (retval == -1) { | ||
228 | perror("ioctl"); | ||
229 | exit(errno); | ||
230 | } | ||
231 | fprintf(stderr, "\nPeriodic IRQ rate was %ldHz.\n", tmp); | ||
232 | |||
233 | fprintf(stderr, "Counting 20 interrupts at:"); | ||
234 | fflush(stderr); | ||
235 | |||
236 | /* The frequencies 128Hz, 256Hz, ... 8192Hz are only allowed for root. */ | ||
237 | for (tmp=2; tmp<=64; tmp*=2) { | ||
238 | |||
239 | retval = ioctl(fd, RTC_IRQP_SET, tmp); | ||
240 | if (retval == -1) { | ||
241 | perror("ioctl"); | ||
242 | exit(errno); | ||
243 | } | ||
244 | |||
245 | fprintf(stderr, "\n%ldHz:\t", tmp); | ||
246 | fflush(stderr); | ||
247 | |||
248 | /* Enable periodic interrupts */ | ||
249 | retval = ioctl(fd, RTC_PIE_ON, 0); | ||
250 | if (retval == -1) { | ||
251 | perror("ioctl"); | ||
252 | exit(errno); | ||
253 | } | ||
254 | |||
255 | for (i=1; i<21; i++) { | ||
256 | /* This blocks */ | ||
257 | retval = read(fd, &data, sizeof(unsigned long)); | ||
258 | if (retval == -1) { | ||
259 | perror("read"); | ||
260 | exit(errno); | ||
261 | } | ||
262 | fprintf(stderr, " %d",i); | ||
263 | fflush(stderr); | ||
264 | irqcount++; | ||
265 | } | ||
266 | |||
267 | /* Disable periodic interrupts */ | ||
268 | retval = ioctl(fd, RTC_PIE_OFF, 0); | ||
269 | if (retval == -1) { | ||
270 | perror("ioctl"); | ||
271 | exit(errno); | ||
272 | } | ||
273 | } | ||
274 | |||
275 | fprintf(stderr, "\n\n\t\t\t *** Test complete ***\n"); | ||
276 | fprintf(stderr, "\nTyping \"cat /proc/interrupts\" will show %d more events on IRQ 8.\n\n", | ||
277 | irqcount); | ||
278 | |||
279 | close(fd); | ||
280 | return 0; | ||
281 | |||
282 | } /* end main */ | ||