WHAT IS THIS?
=============

nbs_time - Call the National Bureau of Standards to set system clock.

Ported to Linux and maintained by Kayvan Sylvan (kayvan@satyr.Sylvan.COM).

This program sets the system clock to the time maintained by the
National Bureau of Standards (WWV Boulder CO).

The actual phone call to NBS is made by the ``cu'' command. The hardware
clock is set by using the ``clock'' command.

In this release, there are two versions of nbs_time, a Perl script and
a C program. There is no real reason to prefer one over the other. The
Perl version is completely equivalent to the C version.

BUILDING THE C PROGRAM
======================

Take a look at the Makefile and the config.h to make sure that the
assumptions made are correct for your system. If you have an ``ld''
that understands QMAGIC executables, you might want to build nbs_time
with ``make QMAGIC=1''. This will create a smaller binary. If you
don't have the new ``ld'', you can still build the C program by typing
``make'' without any arguments.

INSTALLATION
============

You must be root in order to install nbs_time. The program must run
as root in order to change the system time.

You can type ``make install'' to install the C program.

You can type ``make install.pl'' to install the Perl program. Check
the top section of the Perl script to make sure that its assumptions
are correct for your system before you install it.

AUTOMATICALLY SETTING YOUR SYSTEM TIME
======================================

To have the system set the time on boot, add the following line to your
/etc/rc.local (or equivalent) file:

# Set system time from NBS
echo "Setting system time from National Bureau of Standards."
/etc/nbs_time &

To have the system set the time periodically (cron), add the following line
to root's crontab file.

00 3 * * * /etc/nbs_time > /dev/null

This entry will cause the time to be set daily at 3:00am.  You can
change the entry to be weekly or monthly or whatever.

MISCELLANEOUS
=============

I don't know where this program originated, but I used it for years on
ESIX 5.3.2 D (a 386 SVR3 Unix) before changing to Linux (if someone
knows who originally wrote it, I'd like to know). I wrote the Perl
version from scratch.

This program is in the public domain and is provided on an as-is
basis.

Enjoy it. If you have problems or questions, Email me. If you know of
other official dialup time-servers, tell me.

======================================================================

Kayvan Sylvan
Sylvan Associates
kayvan@satyr.Sylvan.COM
