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Incorrect System Clock

By Jeffrey Howard
All rights reserved unless noted otherwise

Whenever two of my server machines rebooted, they reset their clocks to a blatantly incorrect time. When the clocks were set via the operating system, they remained correct until the machines were next rebooted; the incorrect time would then assert itself.

Platform

This problem arose on two desktop computers, both running linux.

Solution

This is a very easy problem to solve. The problem is that linux is grabbing the time from the system's BIOS clock. This clock is incorrect, so each time the operating system boots, it too will be incorrect. To fix the problem, reboot your computer, but go to the BIOS setup while the computer is booting. Change the clock to reflect accurate time.

The Better Solution

After reading this page, someone sent me a better solution to this problem. Use the command "hwclock -w" and you don't have to reboot.

Notes

Another option would be to use a network time synchronization protocol, such as NTP, but that seems to be overkill for so small a problem.