Re: Wrong timestamps in vax test results

[Ken Wellsch <kcwellsch%outlook.com@localhost>]

FWIW, here is the warning from an old log from a uVAX2 (booting NetBSD 10.0 release)

[   8.6800060] WARNING: preposterous TOD clock time
[   8.6900060] WARNING: using filesystem time
[   8.7100060] WARNING: CHECK AND RESET THE DATE!


________________________________________
From: port-vax-owner%NetBSD.org@localhost <port-vax-owner%NetBSD.org@localhost> on behalf of Anders Magnusson <ragge%tethuvudet.se@localhost>
Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2026 8:55 AM
To: Johnny Billquist; Martin Husemann
Cc: Andreas Gustafsson; Roland Illig; port-vax%NetBSD.org@localhost
Subject: Re: Wrong timestamps in vax test results

Den 2026-04-11 kl. 14:06, skrev Johnny Billquist:
> 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?
It warns if the TODR clock has an unreasonable value.  There is some
magic with setting very high bits in TODR and then check if they are set
after booting.  So it should be quite usable.

-- R