[ntp:questions] NTP stepping issue

Robert Rati Robert.Rati at motorola.com
Mon Oct 11 19:17:25 UTC 2004


I have a client running in a stituation where it can not step the time 
once the system is up.  The system will attempt to step the time when 
the NTP daemon is started, but from there on out (including server 
failovers) the time must be slewed.  So I was testing a failover 
condition, and set the time back 30 seconds and started the NTP daemon. 
  I have disabled the panic time using

tinker panic 0

The system repeatedly threw out

frequency error 512 PPM exceeds tolerance 500 PPM

but the time was slowing being slewed correctly.  Unfortunately, it 
never stopped being slewed.  The client slowly slewed to the time 
provided by the server, and then right past it.  It went from being 30 
seconds behind to being 2 minutes fast and counting.  Is this an 
expected behavior?  It would seem to me that once the NTP daemon on the 
client reached the time being served by the server, that the daemon 
would stop slewing and be in sync.

Also, is the ntp daemon supposed to be able to handle a time difference 
of 30 seconds without stepping (ie only slowly slewing to correct the 
time difference)?

In addition to that, can the ntp daemon handle the time being changed on 
the local system (ie via the date command) while the daemon is running?

Rob



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