FC 1: NTPD not keeping time correctly

akast82 at coatimundi.net akast82 at coatimundi.net
Wed Sep 8 19:36:32 UTC 2004


On Wed, 8 Sep 2004, Matthew Miller wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 08, 2004 at 11:56:10AM -0400, Clint Harshaw wrote:
> > I have tried each of the three redhat clocks that are listed in the 
> > Adjust Date/Time gui, and have a check in Enable Network Time Protocol.
> > What am I missing that is preventing the clock to properly sync up and 
> > maintain the correct time?
> 
> Are you running a firewall? Have you used the system-config-securitylevel
> (or lokkit) tools to change its settings, but not restarted NTP?

In addition to all these critical points about ntp configuration, firewall
configuration, and NTP server relationships, I would like to point out that
NTP also fails to work with exceptionally inaccurate system clocks.

I encountered this problem recently with a Dell Latitude 810 laptop.  The
verbose ntp documentation (installed with Fedora) explains that ntpd can't
correct for clock frequency errors greater than 500 parts per million.  My
system clock was of by about one part in 100, so the clock was never right.

If none of the other suggestions work out, you might try learning to read the
output from ntpq and see if the daemon is unable to synchronize.  See
file:///usr/share/doc/ntp-4.2.0/debug.html.  I fixed my problem by installing
the adjtimex package, and then using /sbin/adjtimex to alter the kernel's
"tick" value until ntpd could lock on.

Anton





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