Howto: jessie, RTC, hwclock

[fruit-uk]

I hope there is room here for yet another RTC thread, this one should get it right from the start - typos excepted!

The method used is different under raspbian jessie to that used with wheezy

I was lucky enough to stumble across http://afterthoughtsoftware.com/products/rasclock early in my searches and it provided me with the final clues I needed.

Your RTC module may have come with instructions, if so read them but bear in mind it is possible they were written for installation under wheezy as jessie is quite new to the official raspbian release.

NB. Where you need to alter files it is always a good idea to save the original as a backup with a command similar to this

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sudo cp /etc/default/hwclock /etc/default/hwclock.BAK

First we need to enable i2c. Do this from raspi-config, see https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... -config.md if you don't know how.

At the end of this step, instead of rebooting now select later.

Now take a look at /boot/overlays/README, scroll to the i2c-rtc section, find your RTC and make a note of the parameter required.

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less /boot/overlays/README

may be useful, scroll keys to navigate, q to quit.

My RTC is a ds1307 so its parameter is ds1307 so I need to add dtoverlay=i2c-rtc,ds1307 to config.txt, yours will likely require a different parameter but the syntax is the same (see https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... fig-txt.md if you are not sure how to edit this file).
Once edited, save the file and exit your editor.
See https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... ce-tree.md for dtoverlays docs.

To make sure relevant modules are loaded at boot time we will now look at /etc/modules. I suggest doing this with

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sudo nano /etc/modules

You may see some modules listed already, leave them but you need
i2c-dev, i2c-bcm2708 and the relevant module for your RTC, the module for mine is rtc-ds1307 so I add rtc-ds1307 yours may be different, add it on a new line and make sure you have an empty line at the end of your new added lines. (nano keys are at the bottom of the editor, Crtl-x to exit, y to save.)

Now reboot. Hopefully all will come back with no nasty messages.


Install i2c-tools

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sudo apt-get install i2c-tools

and whilst we are here purge fake-hwclock

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sudo dpkg --purge fake-hwclock

[/s]

Note that I have struck out the above line as it seems that if fake-hwclock is removed then 1 Jan 1970 timestamps will appear in /var/logs/syslog early in the boot sequence - try it and see

Now we'll check that the RTC is available with

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sudo i2cdetect -y 1

You should see output similar to

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     0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  a  b  c  d  e  f
00:          -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 
10: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 1c -- -- -- 
20: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 
30: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 
40: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 
50: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 
60: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- UU -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 
70: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 

Note that I have UU in position 68, this is my RTC device and it is in use. You may see 68 instead. All being well you have something in this position.

We can now edit /lib/udev/hwclock-set with

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sudo nano /lib/udev/hwclock-set

locate the lines and edit

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if [ -e /run/systemd/system ] ; then
    exit 0
fi

so that section looks like

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#if [ -e /run/systemd/system ] ; then
#    exit 0
#fi

Important note:
The first mentioned link also suggests that you comment out the closely following two lines containing --systz
There is a link to a bug-list thread to justify this https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... bug=764552 , however, if you scroll almost to the bottom of that same page it seems that these two lines are required - particularly if you are running ntp as I do.
My RTC is running fine with them in, others have theirs running fine with them commented out. Take your pick and see if all is working as it should

Now

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date

should show you the current time.

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sudo hwclock -w

writes the system time to your RTC

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sudo hwclock -r

reads it back - it should be much the same as from the date command.

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sudo hwclock -s

writes RTC back to system time. (There are variations on these commands but the OS should take of everything once we are at this stage).

You may edit/etc/default/hwclock however the defaults here should just work.

Reboot and check /var/log/syslog.
If all is working as it should you will now see correct timestamps after the system restarts.

[allfox]

Good job! I just got my DS3231 work via your steps.

I haven't do digging into RTC since my nixie tubes dead. Reading this thread, I remount DS3231 from dust to my router Pi, it looks working well.

[fruit-uk]

Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad it all worked

[alex_holden]

Thanks, this got my RTC working again under Jessie. Since my RPi lives somewhere with no Internet access and reboots frequently, I was getting pretty tired of manually setting the clock! I'd managed to figure out everything except for the change to the /lib/udev/hwclock-set script.

[faand412882]

Все компактно и понятно, а самое главное DS3231 работает. Отличная инструкция, спасибо!

[joyopd]

Hi,

thank you, finally, it is working as it should. This was 6th tutorial I tried.

[doughadfield]

Hi, with the latest Jessie, it's now even simpler to get rtc working. I've posted a description on the forum, but in a nutshell, you only need to make two edits to a standard Jessie raspbian or raspbian lite:

1. add the "dtoverlay=i2c-rtc,<chipset>" line in the /boot/config.txt file, as per your description
2. comment out the if-then statement in the /lib/udev/rwclock-set file, as per your description

that's all - nothing else

Doug