ISELTIME(8)

✨ ISELTIME — the iseltime(8) glow-up ✨

okay bestie, welcome to iseltime, a system manager's manual situation, and yes it's from the System Manager's Manual section of the iseltime(8) page 💖 buckle up.

🌸 NAME 🌸

iseltime — sync your BIOS RTC and your firmware SEL time up with the system time. it's giving "everybody on the same clock, no cap" ⏰✨

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

iseltime [-sx -N node -U user -P/-R pswd -EFJTVYZ]

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so, iseltime is a program that lets you synchronize the hardware time values for RTC (BIOS Real-Time-Clock) and SEL (IPMI firmware SEL time) with the OS system time. literally the whole point 🫶

run it with no options at all and it just shows you each of these times, so you can vibe check whether they're the same or not. no changes, just receipts 👀

the OS system time should be in sync with the BIOS Real-Time-Clock. the OS system time may also be kept from drifting via an NTP server. normally the BIOS will set the firmware SEL time from the RTC during boot, but running this command may be necessary periodically if the system does not reboot for a long time, for instance. ngl that's the whole use case.

⚠️ note that some applications may not handle setting the time backward well. 😭

⚠️ note that this command should not be run too frequently to avoid firmware timing issues. it should not be set more than once per day. periodt. that's the rule. do not be out here spamming it.

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

command line options are described below, bestie, and there are a lot of them, so let's go 💫

• -s — set the RTC and IPMI firmware SEL time to match the system time. this should not be performed more often than once a day 🗓️ (yes, again. we mean it.)
• -x — causes eXtra debug messages to be displayed. more words! more info! slay 🔍
• -N nodename — nodename or IP address of the remote target system. if a nodename is specified, IPMI LAN interface is used. otherwise the local system management interface is used 🌐
• -U rmt_user — remote username for the nodename given. the default is a null username 🫥
• -P/-R rmt_pswd — remote password for the nodename given. the default is a null password 🔑
• -E — use the remote password from environment variable IPMI_PASSWORD 🌱
• -F drv_t — force the driver type to one of the following: imb, va, open, gnu, landesk, lan, lan2, lan2i, kcs, smb. note that lan2i means lan2 with intelplus. the default is to detect any available driver type and use it 🚗
• -J — use the specified LanPlus cipher suite (0 thru 17): 0=none/none/none, 1=sha1/none/none, 2=sha1/sha1/none, 3=sha1/sha1/cbc128, 4=sha1/sha1/xrc4_128, 5=sha1/sha1/xrc4_40, 6=md5/none/none, ... 14=md5/md5/xrc4_40. default is 3 🔐
• -T — use a specified IPMI LAN Authentication Type: 0=None, 1=MD2, 2=MD5, 4=Straight Password, 5=OEM 🪪
• -V — use a specified IPMI LAN privilege level. 1=Callback level, 2=User level, 3=Operator level, 4=Administrator level (default), 5=OEM level 👑
• -Y — yes, do prompt the user for the IPMI LAN remote password. alternatives for the password are -E or -P 🙋
• -Z — set the slave address for a local MC 🔧

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

go read these too, they're all iconic in their own way:

ipmiutil(8) ialarms(8) iconfig(8) icmd(8) idiscover(8) ievents(8) igetevent(8) ihealth(8) ilan(8) ireset(8) isel(8) isensor(8) iserial(8) isol(8) iwdt(8)

💀 WARNINGS 💀

see http://ipmiutil.sourceforge.net/ for the latest version of ipmiutil and any bug fix list. fr fr, go check it, that's where the fixes live 🐛

📜 COPYRIGHT 📜

Copyright (C) 2009 Kontron America, Inc.

see the file COPYING in the distribution for more details regarding redistribution.

this utility is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY. (all caps, so you know it's serious 😭)

🫶 AUTHOR 🫶

Andy Cress <arcress at users.sourceforge.net>

and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 Version 1.0: 13 Jul 2018 — shoutout to the source/version and that very specific date, we love a timestamped queen 🎀✨ go sync those clocks (once a day, max!!) 👑