[ntp:questions] Odd (mis)behavior when reference clock fails

Rob Neal hundoj at comcast.net
Thu Sep 18 21:51:40 UTC 2008


On Tue, 16 Sep 2008, Kevin Oberman wrote:

> We have a fairly large "mesh" of NTP servers spread across the
> US. Almost all have PPS reference clocks and are quite
> accurate. Recently one of the reference clocks located across the county
> seems to have failed. Such is life.
>
> The problem is that the system's time started drifting and eventually
> became far enough out of sync with the mesh to be marked as a bad
> ticker.
>
> The only way I could get the clock to slew or step the time was to edit
> the configuration and comment out the reference clock and PPS. It looks
> like the system will only use the time from a reference clock when and if
> the clock is configured, even if it can't be read.
>
> Is there any way to "fix" this?

 	What is it that you consider broken? Please clarify.
 	I've re-read this several times, and don't see the problem.
 	A reference clock broke. It was disregarded because it chimed
 	badly.
 	You expected something different?

 	A clock must be configured to be used, yes. Sad but true.

> -- 
> R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
> Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
> Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
> E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634
> Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4  EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751
>



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