[U-Boot-Users] "date reset" for MPC8xx

[U-Boot-Users] "date reset" for MPC8xx

[Steven Scholz]

Hi there,

I think would should realy reset the MPC8xx's internal RTC when 
calling "date reset" or "rtc_reset" instead of "nothing to do".

Please find and consider the attached patch.

Background:

I have seen it several times, that the MPC8xx's internal RTC contains 
an invalid date, e.g. negative times (caused by no or low battery). 
That might result in dates before 1970-01-01 under Linux and that in 
turn confuses timeouts.

I've seen that udhcpc (from busybox) hangs in such cases!

For that reason u-boot should check for valid dates and do a 
rtc_reset() if nessesary.


Thanks,

Steven

---------

CHANGELOG:

* Patch by Steven Scholz, 14 Apr 2003:
   - reset_rtc() sets MPC8xx internal RTC back to 1970-01-01

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[U-Boot-Users] "date reset" for MPC8xx

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Steven,

in message <3E9AB4C2.6020500@imc-berlin.de> you wrote:
> 
> I think would should realy reset the MPC8xx's internal RTC when 
> calling "date reset" or "rtc_reset" instead of "nothing to do".

But on the MPC8xx's internal RTC there is no "reset" function, so  it
is IMHO appropriate to do nothing.

> Please find and consider the attached patch.
> 
> Background:
> 
> I have seen it several times, that the MPC8xx's internal RTC contains 
> an invalid date, e.g. negative times (caused by no or low battery). 

There is no "invalid date" in the Unix notation of  time_t.  Negative
times (i. e. dates < January 1, 1970,00:00:00 UTC, are valid, too.

> That might result in dates before 1970-01-01 under Linux and that in 
> turn confuses timeouts.

Oops? I am not aware of any part in U-Boot (or Linux) that  uses  the
system time for timeouts! And I cannot understand why January 1, 1970
should  be  any better than January 1, 1960 or January 1, 1950 or any
other arbitrarily chosen date.

> I've seen that udhcpc (from busybox) hangs in such cases!

FIx this, then.

> For that reason u-boot should check for valid dates and do a 
> rtc_reset() if nessesary.

No. The RTC reset funtion is only to be used for RTC chips where  the
hardware supports such a reset operation.


If you need a valid system time, please use the "date" command to set
a valid time.


Patch rejected.


Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87  Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88  Email: wd at denx.de
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
                                                   - Arthur C. Clarke