Re: [chrony-users] Query regarding "chronyd failing spuriously"

Thanks Bill for the speedy reply.

1)

I am not using a virtual machine.
All tests that I have been doing are on individual, dedicated machines.

2)

The machine where the "spurious" instances occur, is a Fedora-18 on ARM, using chrony-1.28.

One question ::
==========

What is the time-interval, after which the time is supposed to be synced "automatically" ?

(note that, I have not made any changes in "/etc/chrony.conf" whatsoever).

Based upon your answer, I "could probably" be in a state to do more rigorous testing.

Thanks again for all the help !

On Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 9:36 PM, Bill Unruh <unruh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, 15 Aug 2013, Ajay Garg wrote:

Hi all.

I have been able to successfully install, configure and run the "chronyd"
service :)

However, I spuriously note the following things ::

a)
Even though "chronyd" is running in the background (confirmed by "service
chronyd status"), the time does not sync up.
This generally happens when the "time drift" is very large.

I assume this is one one of your clients (C1....Cn) Is it a virtual machine?
Ie, is it linux running on top of another operating system? That almost
certainly will not work, since the time slicing given to the OS vary wildly
and as a rsult the system time varies wildly and there is not consistant
drift. You should use the underlying OS to set its clock and the virtual
machine should read its time from there. But Many virtual OSs do not seem to
do that. They try to read their own system times, which are junk.

If it is not a virtual machine, then there is something seriously wrong with
the hardware.

b)
In other cases, (when the "time drift" is large), the "chronyd" service
dies at some point, randomly (confirmed by "service chronyd status").

Which version of chrony are you using by the way?

To cater to above, (and ensure that the time does not remain out of sync
for more than 59 minutes), I have setup a hourly cron job, that does
"service chronyd restart".
Doing a service restart, syncs the time, no matter what.

My query is ::
=========

Installing the hourly cron-job seems to be a hack, to make the time-syncing
work seamlessly.
Is there a better way, to ensure that spurious cases a) and b) never happen?

a) or b) should never happen. Note that I vaguely recalol that there was a bug
in an older version of chrony which could cause it to run away and crash. Make
sure you are using 1.28 or 1.29

Will be grateful for any replies, that help make the procedure smoother
(and not rely on a hack) :)

Thanks and Regards,
Ajay

--
William G. Unruh | Canadian Institute for| Tel: +1(604)822-3273
Physics&Astronomy | Advanced Research | Fax: +1(604)822-5324
UBC, Vancouver,BC | Program in Cosmology | unruh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Canada V6T 1Z1 | and Gravity | www.theory.physics.ubc.ca/

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Regards,
Ajay