m88k.com: Howto synchronize date/time in Motorola unix V/68 and V/88

Enabling linux system to serve date/time requests and adding rdate to R3V8

Why and where this HOWTO is needed

Keywords

Motorola System V/88 R4V4
Motorola System V/68 R3V8
NFS services and disks
Time service
Time synchronization

Pre-requisities

Motorola System V/88 R4V4 system or
Motorola System V/68 R3V8 system
Linux system as time server (can be separate or also act as the NFS server)
NFS service system
Network and NFS environments

Expected knowledge

Unix, Linux and shell usage
Linux update procedures
Vi editor commands
Basic Motorola computer and Unix knowledge

Target

TO: Enable time synchronization in R3V8 and/or R4V4
NOT: to instruct Linux updates, to setup ntp services
Centos 6.7 used as an example only.

Steps to complete:

Step 1 - Check Linux system for tcp/time service

Timeservice is an old time syncronization protocol which is almost fully replaced by ntp protocol.
Your system may already support tcp/time. Test it in Your Linux with:
First: telnet localhost 37
Second: telnet <server address> 37
Third from a different computer: telnet <server address> 37
If first command succeeds You have time service already available. If second or third command fails You may have a firewall blocking access to the service.

Step 2 - Update Linux system to serve tcp/time

If based on Step 1 You do not have tcp/time service available follow these instructions or similar actions based on Your server.
Enable port tcp/37 in Your Linux computer:
First: Install xinetd in Your Linux system eg. with "yum install xinetd"
Your update command depends on the system and brand You are using.
Second: In /etc/xinetd.d folder update files time-dgram and time-stream
with setting "disable = no".
Reboot Your system.

Step 3 - Check firewall setup

From a different computer test:
telnet <server address> 37
If telnet fails firewall settings may be needed.
In Centos 6.7 add following line to /etc/sysconfig/iptables:
```
-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 37 -j ACCEPT
```
Usually You should use a similar row as a template. The port number 37 is the port to be opened.
Reboot Your system.

Step 4 - Test time service

Check tcp/time service with "telnet <server address> 37"
Telnet is a very good test program for port access. Check You system documentation if access fails. Typical responses are (12AB and 12EF are placeholders for the real response which are usually nonprintable). If You want to see the real data You can pipe the data eg. to "od -c" like
"telnet <server address> 37 | od -c".
```
$ telnet localhost 37
Trying ::1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
12ABConnection closed by foreign host.
$ 
$ telnet 123.123.123.123 37
Trying 123.123.123.123...
Connected to 123.123.123.123.
Escape character is '^]'.
12EFConnection closed by foreign host.
```

Step 5 - Test with R4V4 or R3V8

Add Your time server in Your /etc/hosts file. You should standardize this to eg. "timeserver" so that You can use same scripts in all systems.
in R4V4 test with:
rdate
In R3V8 You need to create the rdate command first. You can use this rdate.c as a template.

in R3V8 test with:
rdate
Typical responses are:

# uname -a
UNIX_System_V r4v44d 4.0 R40V4.4 m88k mc88110
# rdate timeserver
Sun Oct 25 14:04:24 2015

# uname -a
r3v8b r3v8b R3V8 ;50602 M68060
# /usr/local/bin/rdate timeserver
timeserver Sun Oct 25 14:05:46 2015

If You can not compile the rdate command You can also try to interpret the telnet response eg. with perl or awk and set the time with scripting. This is left as the exersice to the reader.
Have fun with Your Motorola computer!
We at m88k.com do!

References