[Tfug] ntpd problems - server losing an hour or more each day

[Chad Woolley]

As a follow up, this ended up NOT fixing the problem after all.  It
kept time for a couple of days, then started losing again.  I finally
just stuck this in root's crontab to get rid of the problem for now:

0 1 * * * /usr/sbin/ntpdate pool.ntp.org;/etc/init.d/ntp-server start

This will force a sync and restart the ntp server every hour, whether
it needs it or not.

-- Chad

On 10/17/06, Chad Woolley <thewoolleyman at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks a lot William, this helped me fix the problem.  I put this in
> my vmx file:
>
> timeTracker.periodicStats = TRUE
> timeTracker.statInterval = 10
>
> I still have no idea why another identical VM on the same box doesn't
> have the same problem, but oh well.
>
> Thanks again!
> -- Chad
>
> On 10/13/06, William Stott <wstott at ventanamed.com> wrote:
> > I ran into this very same problem with VMWare. It was on SUSE, but the OS is
> > not really the issue. VMWare + ntpd don¹t always play nice. Here¹s what I
> > had to do to fix it:
> >
> > Add this to the vmx file for the guest OS:
> >
> > timeTracker.periodicStats = "TRUE"
> > processor1.use = "FALSE"
> > processor2.use = "FALSE"
> > processor3.use = "FALSE"
> > processor4.use = "FALSE"
> > processor5.use = "FALSE"
> > processor6.use = "FALSE"
> > processor7.use = "FALSE"
> >
> > Change the time in the OS to the correct time.
> >
> > Start the ntp client
> >
> > Hope this helps.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > William Stott
> >
> >
> > On 10/13/06 10:36 AM, "Chad Woolley" <thewoolleyman at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I have a box (Ubuntu Server) which keeps losing time, an hour or more
> > > per day.  I'm running ntpd, but it keeps (apparently) crashing when
> > > the time gets too far off, even though I pass the -g option.
> > >
> > > The strange thing is, this is a VMWare virtual server, and another
> > > virtual server on the same box  which is - er - virtually identical -
> > > does NOT have this problem.
> > >
> > > This was a standard apt install of the ntp daemon (just like the other
> > > box).  We've tweaked the config a bit, to no avail - logging to a
> > > separate file, passing -g on startup, and commenting out the "LOCAL"
> > > entries in ntp.conf.
> > >
> > > Does anyone have any idea how to fix or even debug this?  Here's the
> > > log for ntpd, I can provide the init script/ntpd conf if needed.
> > >
> > > 12 Oct 11:39:16 ntpd[18862]: ntpd 4.2.0a at 1:4.2.0a+stable-8-r Mon May
> > > 29 02:48:41 UTC 2006 (1)
> > > 12 Oct 11:39:18 ntpd[18862]: precision = 5.000 usec
> > > 12 Oct 11:39:18 ntpd[18862]: Listening on interface wildcard, 0.0.0.0#123
> > > 12 Oct 11:39:18 ntpd[18862]: Listening on interface wildcard, ::#123
> > > 12 Oct 11:39:18 ntpd[18862]: Listening on interface lo, 127.0.0.1#123
> > > 12 Oct 11:39:18 ntpd[18862]: Listening on interface eth0, 69.55.xxx.xxx#123
> > > 12 Oct 11:39:18 ntpd[18862]: kernel time sync status 0040
> > > 12 Oct 11:39:18 ntpd[18862]: frequency initialized 50.605 PPM from
> > > /var/lib/ntp/ntp.drift
> > > 12 Oct 11:51:04 ntpd[18862]: synchronized to 82.211.81.145, stratum 2
> > > 12 Oct 11:54:14 ntpd[18862]: time reset +190.260196 s
> > > 12 Oct 11:54:14 ntpd[18862]: kernel time sync disabled 0041
> > > 12 Oct 11:59:37 ntpd[18862]: synchronized to 213.251.165.16, stratum 2
> > > 12 Oct 12:04:57 ntpd[18862]: synchronized to 82.211.81.145, stratum 2
> > > 12 Oct 12:04:57 ntpd[18862]: kernel time sync enabled 0001
> > > 12 Oct 12:07:13 ntpd[18862]: no servers reachable
> > > 12 Oct 12:49:06 ntpd[18862]: synchronized to 213.251.165.16, stratum 2
> > > 12 Oct 12:49:06 ntpd[18862]: time correction of 1022 seconds exceeds
> > > sanity limit (1000); set clock manually to the correct UTC time.
> > >
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Chad
> > >
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