LinuxPPS: core support

This patch adds the kernel side of the PPS support currently named
"LinuxPPS".

PPS means "pulse per second" and a PPS source is just a device which
provides a high precision signal each second so that an application can
use it to adjust system clock time.

Common use is the combination of the NTPD as userland program with a GPS
receiver as PPS source to obtain a wallclock-time with sub-millisecond
synchronisation to UTC.

To obtain this goal the userland programs shoud use the PPS API
specification (RFC 2783 - Pulse-Per-Second API for UNIX-like Operating
Systems, Version 1.0) which in part is implemented by this patch.  It
provides a set of chars devices, one per PPS source, which can be used to
get the time signal.  The RFC's functions can be implemented by accessing
to these char devices.

Signed-off-by: Rodolfo Giometti <giometti@linux.it>
Cc: David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org>
Cc: Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>
Cc: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
Cc: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@vrfy.org>
Acked-by: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@googlemail.com>
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>
Cc: Roman Zippel <zippel@linux-m68k.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

1 files changed, 2 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/ioctl/ioctl-number.txt b/Documentation/ioctl/ioctl-number.txt
index 1f779a25c703..7bb0d934b6d8 100644
--- a/Documentation/ioctl/ioctl-number.txt
+++ b/Documentation/ioctl/ioctl-number.txt
@@ -149,6 +149,8 @@ Code	Seq#	Include File		Comments
 'p'     40-7F   linux/nvram.h
 'p'     80-9F                           user-space parport
                                         <mailto:tim@cyberelk.net>
+'p'     a1-a4   linux/pps.h             LinuxPPS
+                                        <mailto:giometti@linux.it>
 'q'     00-1F   linux/serio.h
 'q'     80-FF                           Internet PhoneJACK, Internet LineJACK
                                         <http://www.quicknet.net>