COOL TIME STUFF:
To have your clock sink up with the atomic clock at Cornell or any other place enter the following as root:
/usr/bin/rdate -s ntp0.cornell.edu && /usr/sbin/hwclock --systohc
RDATE must be installed for this to work. Duh!
You can add this to a perl script called by roots crontab so it will check every now and then.
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hwclock [options]
System administration command. Read or set the hardware clock. This command maintains change information in /etc/adjtime, which can be used to adjust the clock based on how much it drifts over time. hwclock replaces the clock command. The single-letter options are included for compatibility with the older command.
Options
You may specify only one of the following options:
-a
Adjust the hardware clock based on information in /etc/adjtime and set the system clock to the new time.
--adjust
Adjust the hardware clock based on information in /etc/adjtime.
--date date
Meaningful only with the --set option. date is a string appropriate for use with the date command.
--debug
Print information about what hwclock is doing.
-r, --show
Print the current time stored in the hardware clock.
-s, --hctosys
Set the system time in accordance with the hardware clock.
--set
Set the hardware clock according to the time given in the --date parameter.
--test
Do not actually change anything. This is good for checking syntax.
-u, --utc
The hardware clock is stored in Universal Coordinated Time.
--version
Print version and exit.
-w, --systohc
Set the hardware clock in accordance with the system time.
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Usage: date [OPTION]... [+FORMAT]
or: date [-u|--utc|--universal] [MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]]
Display the current time in the given FORMAT, or set the system date.
-d, --date=STRING display time described by STRING, not `now'
-f, --file=DATEFILE like --date once for each line of DATEFILE
-I, --iso-8601[=TIMESPEC] output an ISO-8601 compliant date/time string.
TIMESPEC=`date' (or missing) for date only,
`hours', `minutes', or `seconds' for date and
time to the indicated precision.
-r, --reference=FILE display the last modification time of FILE
-R, --rfc-822 output RFC-822 compliant date string
-s, --set=STRING set time described by STRING
-u, --utc, --universal print or set Coordinated Universal Time
--help display this help and exit
--version output version information and exit
FORMAT controls the output. The only valid option for the second form
specifies Coordinated Universal Time. Interpreted sequences are:
%% a literal %
%a locale's abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)
%A locale's full weekday name, variable length (Sunday..Saturday)
%b locale's abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)
%B locale's full month name, variable length (January..December)
%c locale's date and time (Sat Nov 04 12:02:33 EST 1989)
%d day of month (01..31)
%D date (mm/dd/yy)
%e day of month, blank padded ( 1..31)
%h same as %b
%H hour (00..23)
%I hour (01..12)
%j day of year (001..366)
%k hour ( 0..23)
%l hour ( 1..12)
%m month (01..12)
%M minute (00..59)
%n a newline
%p locale's AM or PM
%r time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss [AP]M)
%s seconds since `00:00:00 1970-01-01 UTC' (a GNU extension)
%S second (00..60)
%t a horizontal tab
%T time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)
%U week number of year with Sunday as first day of week (00..53)
%V week number of year with Monday as first day of week (01..53)
%w day of week (0..6); 0 represents Sunday
%W week number of year with Monday as first day of week (00..53)
%x locale's date representation (mm/dd/yy)
%X locale's time representation (%H:%M:%S)
%y last two digits of year (00..99)
%Y year (1970...)
%z RFC-822 style numeric timezone (-0500) (a nonstandard extension)
%Z time zone (e.g., EDT), or nothing if no time zone is determinable
By default, date pads numeric fields with zeroes. GNU date recognizes
the following modifiers between `%' and a numeric directive.
`-' (hyphen) do not pad the field
`_' (underscore) pad the field with spaces