Re: Wrong timestamps in vax test results

Johnny Billquist <[email protected]> Sat, 11 Apr 2026 14:06:41 +0200
Newsgroups gmane.os.netbsd.ports.vax
Organization SoftJAR AB
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On 2026-04-11 13:54, Anders Magnusson wrote:
> Den 2026-04-11 kl. 13:39, skrev Martin Husemann:
>> On Sat, Apr 11, 2026 at 12:36:56PM +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>> You need to set the clock, using ntp, or a command, or whatever. 
>>> VAXen in
>>> general do not have an external clock that tells absolute time.
>>> There is a clock that runs when power is off, but it only keeps trackof
>>> time for about a year before it wraps (it's a simple counter). So 
>>> time gets
>>> set based on when the system was shut down, and what this counter then
>>> tells.
>> "when the system was shut down" is the superblock timestamp in ffs?
>> This does not exist, the disk image is (virtually) all zeros.
>>
>> How can we fix this when booting from an ISO image?
>>
>> We could do some stupid hack like have sysinst check for dates before it
>> was build and if clock is that far in the past, ask the user for manual
>> time setup (and anita could then react to those prompts).
> In the beginning it was A GIANT WARNING IN CAPS when booting, telling 
> the user that TODR was not correct.
> Have this changed lately?  Otherwise that warning maybe can be used to 
> trigger something?

I can't remember for sure, but isn't that more when the clock is not 
running? If it is running, I don't think that warning is shown.
But maybe I'm misremembering here?

   Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: [email protected]             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol