position - print or set the system position
position [-v] [-x prec] [-z prec]
position [-v] longitude latitude [height]
position [-V]
Display the current position of the system CPU or set the CPU position.
When called without arguments, position prints the current position of the system as a triplet of longitude, latitude and height. Longitude and latitude are in degrees, height is in meters. Negative numbers are not used; instead the letters N, E, S, W, A, B indicate North, East, South, West, Above Sea Level and Below Sea Level (see EXAMPLES below).
When called with arguments, position transports the system to the point set by the longitude, latitude and
optional height. Only superuser can set the system position. The format of
the coordinates is the same as above, but the letters N, E, A can be
omitted, and the letters S, W, B can be substituted by minus signs. In this
case the argument -- must be used to indicate the end of options. If the height is omitted, the
ground level is assumed.
Be verbose and output debugging information
Print version information and exit
Set precision of the horizontal coordinates in degrees (by default 0.01)
Set precision of the horizontal coordinates in meters (by default 0.01)
Successful exit
Only a superuser can set system position
Cannot open /usr/share/position/geography.dat
Location out of range
Wrong arguments
/usr/share/position/geography.dat information about Earth shape
position -x .001 -z .1 position 25N 32W position 25N 32.43W 5A position -- 25 -32 -1
date(1)
No check is performed whether the new location has electric power or network connection. Therefore a badly chosen position can cause a system crash.
The coordinates reported by position are in fact the coordinates of the CPU. On multi-CPU systems the reported position may vary from invocation to invocation if high precision is set.
Due to Heisenberg uncertainty principle the command
time position longitude latitude
might lead to unexpected results.
Unknown.
1980s