ntpd struggling to keep up - how to fix?

[Chuck Swiger]

Hi--

On Feb 11, 2010, at 10:06 AM, Torfinn Ingolfsen wrote:
[ ... ]
> Feb  7 16:11:45 kg-f2 ntpd[910]: time reset +2.373325 s
> 
> and this goes on an on, forever. At any give time, no matter how long the machine has been up, ntpq ca report this:
> root at kg-f2# ntpq -p
>     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter
> ==============================================================================
> kg-omni1.kg4.no 129.240.64.3     3 u   13   64   37    0.162  703.094 444.681

The rate at which this machine is losing time is probably exceeding the ~50 seconds per day that NTPd is willing to correct without extreme measures (ie, it has to step time rather than drift-correct).  You might help it maintain a more sane idea of time by using at least 4 timeservers.

You might take a look at 'vmstat -i' and look out for an interrupt storm, but it's possible your hardware's clock is simply busted.  

Regards,
-- 
-Chuck