Modifying the time function in C - c

Question

For a computer security assignment, I have to modify the time function in order to return a specific date. I need the time function to return a date between Jan 1st, 2016 and June 15th, 2018. I then use these commands to overload and hook into the time function:
gcc -Wall -fPIC -shared -o newtime.so newtime.c -ldl
export LD_PRELOAD=$PWD/newtime.so
Here is my modified version of the time function:
#define _GNU_SOURCE
#include <dlfcn.h>
#include <time.h>
time_t time (time_t *t)
{
long int seconds = 1485907200;
time_t modifiedTime = (time_t) seconds;
return modifiedTime;
}
Whenever I run this implementation, it says that the date being returned is December 31, 1969 19:00:00. Am I just formatting the time since the Linux Epoch incorrectly or am I making a more serious mistake? I have tried using a regular int instead of a long int, and still experience the same issues. Some insight into my mistake would be very helpful.

Answer 1

You're not implementing the entire functionality of time(). The code your interposing on may use functionality that you have not implemented.
Per the C standard:
7.27.2.4 The time function (note the bolded part):
Synopsis
#include <time.h>
time_t time(time_t *timer);
Description
The time function determines the current calendar time. The encoding
of the value is unspecified.
Returns
The time function returns the implementation's best approximation to
the current calendar time. The value (time_t)(-1) is returned if the
calendar time is not available. If timer is not a null pointer, the
return value is also assigned to the object it points to.
A full implementation, based on your code:
time_t time (time_t *t)
{
long int seconds = 1485907200;
time_t modifiedTime = (time_t) seconds;
if ( t )
{
*t = modifiedTime;
}
return modifiedTime;
}

Answer 2

In fact, there is no problem in the code that you presented. I tested it with the following basic program:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>
int main(void)
{
printf("%ld\n", (long) time(NULL));
}
So I just run LD_PRELOAD=./newtime.so ./test and I get the expected result.
However, the date command doesn't make call to the time function. It calls instead int clock_gettime(clockid_t clk_id, struct timespec *tp). So you should better re-implement them both if you would like to cover this case.
May be a simple implementation like the following one (It works fine with date):
int clock_gettime(clockid_t clk_id, struct timespec *tp)
{
if(tp) {
tp->tv_sec = 1485907200;
tp->tv_nsec = 0;
}
return 0;
}
If you get a date different from your expectation, it could be related to your time zone.