Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:07:00 -0400
From: Bill Nottingham <notting@redhat.com>
To: Christopher Brannon <cmbrannon@cox.net>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] /dev/time for Linux, inspired by Plan 9
Message-ID: <20090311220700.GA16368@nostromo.devel.redhat.com>
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Christopher Brannon (cmbrannon@cox.net) said: 
> Under Plan 9 from Bell Labs, one queries or sets the system clock by
> reading or writing text strings to a special file named /dev/time.
> I implemented such a facility for Linux.  A read of /dev/time produces
> four decimal numbers: epoch seconds, nanoseconds since start of epoch,
> nanoseconds since boot, and nanoseconds per second.  Writing a decimal number
> to /dev/time sets the system clock to the given number of epoch seconds.
> Anyone who is permitted to write to /dev/time may set the clock.
> Granting this privilege becomes as easy as modifying groups and file
> permissions.

Given the general array of current interfaces in the kernel, isn't
read/write of textual parameters better suited to sysfs or procfs
than a character device?

Bill
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