There are at least two RTC modules containing the DS3231 available from China. Both can operate with the Raspberry Pi and one is designed especially for it.

One useful feature of the DS3231 other than keeping the time is its built-in temperature readout, however, initial tests suggest that this is inaccurate.

This device is as simple as it gets. There are two pull-up resistors for the I2C lines (4K3), a battery connected to the VBAT pin and a capacitor on the power rails.

This device plugs directly into the GPIO header.

I bought two of these devices and one was faulty. Fixing simply involved applying pressure on each pin of the chip with a hot iron, these devices may not be manufactured to a high standard.

This module contains the RTC and an HK24C32 EEPROM. It tends to ship with a CR2032 battery and, as the per advice of many web sites, it's important to desolder the charge feature of the module (see schematic).

By default the EEPROM content is

./mcp24 1 0x57 -d
EEPROM FOUND AT 0x0057
DUMP
[0000] 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 4A 4B 4C 4D 4E 4F 50 |ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP|
[0010] 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 5A FF FF FF FF FF FF |QRSTUVWXYZ......|