Bug#785445: Bug#785419: Bug#855203: hwclock-set: Synchronize from hwclock despite systemd presence

[Rick Thomas]

On Sat, May 8, 2021, at 12:02 PM, Salvatore Bonaccorso wrote:
> Control: tags -1 + moreinfo
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Ist this still an issue or has been fixed in meanwhile? I'm going
> through some older src:linux associated buts and noticed that it was
> considered here to reassign it to util-linux.
> 
> Is the problem still present?
> 
> Further:
> 
> On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 07:55:31PM +0100, Lukas Wunner wrote:
> [...]
> > @Rick Thomas: Could you verify if the attached patch solves this issue
> > for you?
> 
> Were you able to test the proposed patch?
> 
> Regards,
> Salvatore

Thanks for following up on this!

No, I got side-tracked by a family medical issue (now all resolved and OK) and never was able to test the patches.  Sorry!

Nevertheless, I can verify that the problem _is_ still with us.  I'm running

    rbthomas at cube:~$ uname -a
    Linux cube 4.19.0-16-armmp #1 SMP Debian 4.19.181-1 (2021-03-19) armv7l GNU/Linux
    rbthomas at cube:~$ cat /etc/debian_version 
    10.9

on a Cubox-i4Pro.   It still shows as having two RealTime clocks.  The one named /dev/rtc0 still looses it's time when I unplug/replug the device, while /dev/rtc1 still does manage to carry-over.  Unfortunately, the kernel still uses rtc0 to set system time when rebooting.

The workaround I use (such as it is) is to run ntpsec with the "-g" option, which allows the first system clock adjustment to be more than 1000 seconds. ( I also have to remember to reset rtc0 after a power outage.)

Along the same lines, I recently got a Raspberry Pi4B 4GB, and was somewhat surprised to find that it did not have a RT clock at all unless you buy an add-on hat for it.  So we not only have to deal with devices with two RT clocks, but also devices with zero RT clocks.

I'm not much of a software developer, so if you want me to test something, please provide it in the form of a ".deb" that I can install,  rather than a set of patches I have to apply.

Thanks!
Rick