linux

LinuxPPS: core support This patch adds the kernel side of the PPS support currently named "LinuxPPS". PPS means "pulse per second" and a PPS source is just a device which provides a high precision signal each second so that an application can use it to adjust system clock time. Common use is the combination of the NTPD as userland program with a GPS receiver as PPS source to obtain a wallclock-time with sub-millisecond synchronisation to UTC. To obtain this goal the userland programs shoud use the PPS API specification (RFC 2783 - Pulse-Per-Second API for UNIX-like Operating Systems, Version 1.0) which in part is implemented by this patch. It provides a set of chars devices, one per PPS source, which can be used to get the time signal. The RFC's functions can be implemented by accessing to these char devices. Signed-off-by: Rodolfo Giometti <giometti@linux.it> Cc: David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org> Cc: Greg KH <greg@kroah.com> Cc: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com> Cc: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@vrfy.org> Acked-by: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@googlemail.com> Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org> Cc: Roman Zippel <zippel@linux-m68k.org> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> 2009-06-17 16:28:37 -07:00