[ntp:questions] ntpd: time reset problem

Brian Utterback brian.utterback at sun.com
Sun Sep 13 22:17:33 UTC 2009


Richard B. Gilbert wrote:

>> Sep 10 20:58:07 seymour ntpd[9104]: synchronized to 134.34.3.18, 
>> stratum 1
>> Sep 10 21:21:02 seymour dovecot: dovecot: Fatal: Time just moved 
>> backwards by 434 seconds. [ ... ]
>> Sep 10 21:26:36 seymour ntpd[9104]: no servers reachable
>> Sep 10 21:42:56 seymour ntpd[9104]: synchronized to 192.53.103.104, 
>> stratum 1
>> Sep 10 21:50:55 seymour ntpd[9104]: time reset +434.824810 s

> 
> Your clock got yanked around by at least one rogue server!  This sort of 
> thing is the reason for configuring four, five, or seven servers.
> 
> It might be helpful if you post your ntp.conf file.

No, it wasn't yanked by a rogue server. It wasn't yanked by NTP at 
all. If NTP set the clock backwards, there would be a message that 
says so. Instead, dovecot notices, and then sometime later NTP notices 
and puts it back to where it is supposed to be. This isn't an NTP 
issue at all, it was something external to NTP that yanked the clock.

Brian Utterback




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