Hello again folks,
(Original query is at end of message)
Thanks to the following people for taking time to answer:
LARRY.CLEGG_at_LPL.COM
Simon Greaves <greaves_s_at_usp.ac.fj>
Martin Mokrejs <mmokrejs_at_natur.cuni.cz>
Larry and Martin also see this message in their syslogs, and both
believe they are harmless.
As Larry sums it:
"The xntpd daemon sends a single UDP datagram in search of the time
server. Timeouts frequently happen. Perhaps your network traffic
was congested, etc and the packet got dropped. I see this same
thing fairly routinely on my DUNIX V4.0x boxes - and these are
connected directly to the Internet and are NTP-time syncing with
the official NIST time servers (www.nist.gov for more info).
In other words - it is nothing to worry about unless it is
continually happening and your time is not synchronizing."
Simon informs that this message may also be the result of trying to sync
the clock while it's offset from the true time is too large:
"ntpd tries to correct your clock by making incremental changes to the
system 'tick'. There is a small, finite amount of adjustment available
which is why it's important to get the clock as accurate as possible
_before_ starting ntpd. If the adjustment needed is too big to be
completed within a given 'tick' you get the warning. I think it is just
a warning."
In my case, a high network traffic seems to be the cause for this
message.
Once again, thank you guys.
#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#- Original query #-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-
Hello DU Admins,
I just began playing with NTP time synchronization on one of our Alphas,
running DU v4.0D + as00002 patch. I'm using the NTP tools provided by
DU.
For reasons that I will not expose here, I had to use our Cisco router
as our time source, and had to configure the DU box to sync from the
router, which it sees as a "server" providing an undisputable time. Our
router itself talks NTP over Internet to a public time server here in
Canada. The router has no problem synchnonizing with the public server,
and the "show ntp status" command on the router consistently shows
"Clock synchronized" messages.
I'm not sure that the synchronization of the DU box clock from the
router clock works. Both clocks show the same time. This is not
surprising since I rebooted my DU box a few hours ago, and the clock got
synchnonized during the boot process. What puzzles me is the presence in
the syslog's daemon.log file of repeated message like "xntpd [3074]:
Previous time adjustment didn't complete". It seems like xntpd is at
times (no pun intended!) unable to maintain synchronization with the
router's clock. Is this message type normal in the operation of the
xntpd daemon? Sometimes, I'm also seeing messages indicating that the
synchronization actually succeeds: "xntpd[3074]: synchronized to
nn.nn.nn.nn, stratum=3".
Suggestions/comments are welcomed. Thank you.
--
Charles Vachon -- Administrateur de systhme
Fonds de la Riforme Cadastrale du Quibec
Ministhre des Ressources Naturelles du Quibec
cvachon2_at_mrn.gouv.qc.ca -- (418) 627-6355 x2760
Received on Sat Oct 31 1998 - 16:15:26 NZDT