time issue

Modulok modulok at gmail.com
Fri Aug 24 20:59:04 PDT 2007


> Hello,
>
> I recently noticed that my clock was running a few minutes slow, even though
> I
> have ntpd running on the box. Now I'm seeing this on occasion.
>
> Aug 24 20:17:10 kanga dovecot: Time just moved backwards by 105 seconds.
> This
> might c
> ause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now.
> http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMov
> edBackwards
>
>
> Does this suggest a hardware clock issue?

Is this a system that is left running 24/7 connected to the Internet,
or a system which is frequently turned off? If the latter, you might
want to do as has been suggested by re-syncing the clock at boot time,
and check the CMOS battery on the mainboard. The current recommended
method of clock sync at boot time is is via ntpd(8) instead of
ntpdate(8), (as of FreeBSD 6.1 and possibly earlier). To quote the
ntpdate(8) manual page:

"Note: The functionality of this program is now available in the ntpd(8)
program.  See the -q command line option in the ntpd(8) page.  After a
suitable period of mourning, the ntpdate utility is to be retired from
this distribution."

To accomplish this simply add the following like to /etc/rc.conf

    ntpd_sync_on_start="YES"         # Synchronize clock at startup.

-Modulok-


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