hwclock and audit system

[Berna Massingill]

>>  > > hwclock --show | cat
>>  > >
>>  > > Does that help?

It did for me (newly-installed FC4 system on Dell Dimension,
hwclock from util-linux-2.12p-9.5).

I notice also that:

(*) hwclock produces output if run from one of the virtual text
consoles, but not if run from an xterm (unless piped to another
command, as you describe above).

(*) /sbin/hwclock does not produce output, but if I copy /sbin/hwclock
to, say, /root/hwclock, /root/hwclock produces output.  

(*) If run as /sbin/hwclock, strace output indicates that the program
makes a call to ioctl, which works in a text console but not in an
xterm.  If run as /root/hwclock, it doesn't make that call, and all
is well.

>>  > No change.  Why do you think it would?

I'm interested in the explanation as well -- why piping the output
to another command makes a difference.  A colleague also says "ask
him whether he found this by accident or whether he knew it would
work because of some deep understanding ...."  So -- ?

>>  http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/fc4/errata/#sn-overview
>>  
>>  hwclock is in the list of daemons covered by the targeted policy. This
>>  means hwclock may or may not have control over the terminal. 

Would I be right in guessing that this explains why putting the
executable in a different directory changes the results??

>>  Though it
>>  seems this issue is a different one (on the German speaking Fedora list
>>  the cat pipe helped recently[1]).
>>  
>>  Alexander
>>  
>>  [1]
>>  https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-de-list/2005-June/msg00109.html

If only I read German!

-- blm