Paul's Wasteland: Sheevaplug - set the real time clock (RTC)

Today I needed to set the date/time on a Sheevaplug like this:

Using NTP wasn't an option as it was installed with no Internet access.

The device has a real-time-clock built-in but using the "hwclock" command in Linux didn't survive a reboot.

To properly set the RTC you need to go in to the u-boot bootloader.

connect the mini-USB serial cable to a PC
if using Windows, you may need to install some drivers, there's instructions for this on the Internet
reboot the sheevaplug and press any key when prompted during the boot sequence

Then you see the u-boot prompt which says "Marvell" on a Sheevaplug.

To set the time & date there is a command "date". With no other options, the command returns the current time/date of the RTC, like this:

Marvell>> date
Date: 2016-09-28 (Wednesday) Time: 10:37:04

To set the date/time, you format is slightly weird (to me at least anyway). It is:

MMDDhhmmYYYY

So the year comes after the hours & minutes. Set it like this:

Marvell>> date 092812272016
Date: 2016-09-28 (Wednesday) Time: 12:27:00

And that's it, the hardware clock will now be set and survive reboots.

Paul's Wasteland