setting time via network at boot

[Richard Hector <rhector@actrix.gen.nz>]

Hi all,

I've got an otherwise OK motherboard that has a dead realtime clock.

What I'd like to do is set the time from another machine at boot time.

What confuses me is that the kernel seems to have some idea of the time
before the hwclock stuff happens from the boot scripts. I guess this is
where the GMT -> local time stuff happens, though. So I guess this is an
ok place to put the commands to set the time from the network instead
(hwclock locks up when trying to access the RTC, so I need to get rid of
that anyway). I want to avoid having steps in my logs at boot time.

The problem is whether the network is up at that point. If not, should I
use kernel parameters to configure the network instead? Will I need to
disable the normal network config scripts?

Also, is there any way I can get this working during the install, so
again I can avoid steps in the logs (and I think things like dpkg & tar
get confused with screwy times).

Lastly, what would be the best client & server for this job? Currently
my (Slackware) router answers OK to rdate, but I'm not sure what's doing
it since it was set up by default. I know Debian doesn't answer that by
default.

Any help appreciated,

Thanks,

Richard