Re: [chrony-users] Restarting the chrony service brakes chrony

On 6 Apr 2022, at 13:31, Uwe Fechner <uwe.fechner@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Dear all,
a colleague of mine found a fix. I changed the start stop script to look like this:

#!/bin/sh
#
# Start chrony

[ -r /etc/default/chrony ] && . /etc/default/chrony

case "$1" in
start)
printf "Starting chrony: "
chronyd $CHRONY_ARGS && echo "OK" || echo "FAIL"
printf "Setting chrony online: "
chronyc online
;;
stop)
printf "Stopping chrony: "
killall chronyd && echo "OK" || echo "FAIL"
;;
restart|reload)
"$0" stop
sleep 1
"$0" start
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}"
exit 1
esac

exit $?

I would still consider this to be a bug. At least the command "chronyc sources" should print a hint if no source is available like:
"Did you try: sudo chronyc online"... But OK, you could say its a bug in the start stop script provided by buildroot.
From: Uwe Fechner <uwe.fechner@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, April 6, 2022 12:04 PM
To: chrony-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <chrony-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [chrony-users] Re: Restarting the chrony service brakes chrony

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This is my configuration:

Start script:

[/etc/init.d]$ cat chrony
#!/bin/sh
#
# Start chrony

[ -r /etc/default/chrony ] && . /etc/default/chrony

case "$1" in
start)
printf "Starting chrony: "
chronyd $CHRONY_ARGS && echo "OK" || echo "FAIL"
;;
stop)
printf "Stopping chrony: "
killall chronyd && echo "OK" || echo "FAIL"
;;
restart|reload)
"$0" stop
sleep 1
"$0" start
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}"
exit 1
esac

exit $?

The file /etc/default/chrony:
[/etc/default]$ cat chrony
CHRONY_ARGS="-s -r -f /home/user/etc/chrony.conf"

The file /home/user/etc/chrony.conf:
[~/etc]$ cat chrony.conf
pool pool.ntp.org iburst offline maxdelayratio 2

driftfile /var/lib/chrony/drift
makestep 1.0 3
rtcfile /var/lib/chrony/rtc
rtconutc
rtcautotrim 30

dumpdir /var/run/chrony

Is it allowed to stop chronyd with "killall chronyd" or is there a better way?

The system is running on 32 bit ARM and was created with buildroot.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
From: Uwe Fechner
Sent: Tuesday, April 5, 2022 5:16 PM
To: chrony-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <chrony-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Restarting the chrony service brakes chrony

I have a strange problem: When chrony is started after boot all works fine.

chronyc --version
chronyc (chrony) version 4.1 (-READLINE +SECHASH +IPV6 -DEBUG)

After 5 min:
chronyc sources
MS Name/IP address Stratum Poll Reach LastRx Last sample
===============================================================================
^- excalibur.prolixium.com   2 6 377 13 +5513us[+4097us] +/- 98ms
^+ gowest.hojmark.net   2 6 371 13 -4181us[-5596us] +/- 59ms
^* ntp0.bgwlan.nl   1 6 327 12 -138us[-1553us] +/- 26ms
^? cloud.discloud.biz   2 6 3 13 +2145us[ +729us] +/- 26ms

Now I restart chrony
sudo service chrony restart
and I get after 1 min:
MS Name/IP address Stratum Poll Reach LastRx Last sample
===============================================================================
^? ntp18.kashra-server.com   0 6 0 - +0ns[ +0ns] +/- 0ns
^? dns02.wsrs.net   0 6 0 - +0ns[ +0ns] +/- 0ns
^? time.cloudflare.com   0 6 0 - +0ns[ +0ns] +/- 0ns
^? ntp1.trans-ix.nl   0 6 0 - +0ns[ +0ns] +/- 0ns

And after 2min
[bmterra@armxl ~]$ chronyc sources
MS Name/IP address Stratum Poll Reach LastRx Last sample
===============================================================================
^? nts1.time.nl   0 6 0 - +0ns[ +0ns] +/- 0ns
^? ntp18.kashra-server.com   0 6 0 - +0ns[ +0ns] +/- 0ns
^? dns02.wsrs.net   0 6 0 - +0ns[ +0ns] +/- 0ns
^? time.cloudflare.com   0 6 0 - +0ns[ +0ns] +/- 0ns
^? docker01.rondie.nl   0 6 0 - +0ns[ +0ns] +/- 0ns
^? ntp1.trans-ix.nl   0 6 0 - +0ns[ +0ns] +/- 0ns
^? aardbei.vanderzwet.net   0 6 0 - +0ns[ +0ns] +/- 0ns

I mean, I can ping the time servers:
ping nts1.time.nl
PING nts1.time.nl(nts1.time.nl (2a00:d78:0:712:94:198:159:11)) 56 data bytes
64 bytes from nts1.time.nl (2a00:d78:0:712:94:198:159:11): icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=53.5 ms
64 bytes from nts1.time.nl (2a00:d78:0:712:94:198:159:11): icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=36.6 ms
64 bytes from nts1.time.nl (2a00:d78:0:712:94:198:159:11): icmp_seq=3 ttl=56 time=34.8 ms
--- nts1.time.nl ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 5ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 34.818/41.657/53.519/8.423 ms

ping ntp18.kashra-server.com
PING ntp18.kashra-server.com (188.165.11.86) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from ntp18.kashra-server.com (188.165.11.86): icmp_seq=1 ttl=51 time=91.1 ms
64 bytes from ntp18.kashra-server.com (188.165.11.86): icmp_seq=2 ttl=51 time=76.7 ms
--- ntp18.kashra-server.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 2 received, 33.3333% packet loss, time 5ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 76.662/83.883/91.104/7.221 ms

Any idea why chrony stops to work after a restart of the service?

Or how to debug that further?

Uwe