[Arm-dev] System time

[Robert Moskowitz]

How is system time set at boot?  Is ntpdate run after the network is 
ready?  How long does it retry waiting for the network to be available?

I have seen a number of challenges becuase the system time is back at 
the epoch start as there is no battery rtc.  And  I wonder how many 
armv7 boards have a battery to maintain time across boots?

Minimally, a process could right the time, in the proper format, to a 
file, say /etc/currenttime every 5 min and at shutdown.

Then date can be run early in the boot process, piping this file in.  It 
would not be perfect and does not help, much for new installs, but 
better than epoch start.

Plus /etc/currenttime can be at least set to the image build date/time 
so not even firstboot will be at epoch start.

Opinions?