[ntp:questions] Re: keeping ntpd running

Brian Utterback Brian.Utterback at Sun.removeme.COM
Thu Sep 25 15:31:38 UTC 2003



Ian Diddams wrote:
> "Richard S. Shuford" <shuford at list.stratagy.REM0VE-THlS-PART.com>
> wrote in
> 
> 
>>If ntpd is found to run for 20 minutes and then quit, what's  
>>going on is probably this:  If the ntpd daemon, when starting
>>up, finds that the system's internal clock is more than 1000
>>seconds different from the time ticks received from external
>>sources, ntpd wants a human to figure out why and make an
>>intentional clock change; the daemon is programmed not to
>>simply trust the external ticks and change the system's clock
>>on its own.  So the daemon rather quietly logs a message:
>>
>>    time error is way too large (set clock manually)
>>
>>and then it gives up.  Without updating the clock.  If left
>>to its own devices, it will never succeed, and the system's
>>time setting will erode until you have the Temporal Dust Bowl.
> 
> 
> 
> Interesting!
> 
> So your saying that a system might run for several days apparently
> quite happily, but in all that time the clock is actually getting
> further away from centralised time rather than closer to it until such
> time as it > 1000 seconds out, at which time it fails/dies/stops/gives
> up/stops running?

I don't think this is quite what Richard is saying. If you have a server
that is giving bad time, or the current time on the system is greater than
1000 seconds off of the correct time, if you are using xntpd and did not
run ntpdate prior to starting it, it may exit shortly after starting,
giving the message above. After that, the system clock is free running,
since xntpd is not running.

This scenario is less likely using ntpd is the -g option is used as well.
In this case, ntpd will act on its own as the ntpdate.

A big problem at start up of xntpd and ntpd is that the mitigation algorithms
are initially crippled in the interest of a fast start, and may not detect
a falseticker and will happily sync to it if it is the first server that becomes
available. Suppose you have a system that is 500 seconds off, and there are four
servers available, one of which is 1001 seconds off in the same direction. If the
timing just happens to be right and the falseticker is the first to reach usability
after 5 polls, the system will step the clock to match the falseticker and will then
reset. After 5 more polls, the truechimers will vote the false ticker off the island,
and the system will now want to reset to the correct time, but since this is not the
first sync, the 1000 second limit will come into play and ntpd (or xntpd) will exit.

-- 
blu

Lesson from the blackout of 2003:
The power grid is THE most critical infrastructure, upon which all
others depend, and nobody really knows how it works.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Utterback - Solaris Sustaining (NFS/Naming) - Sun Microsystems Inc.,
Ph/VM: 781-442-1343, Em:brian.utterback-at-ess-you-enn-dot-kom




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