Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: staticsafe <me@××××××××××.ca>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Server system date synchronizaion
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 23:57:22
Message-Id: 5179C2D3.7080204@staticsafe.ca
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-user] Server system date synchronizaion by Alan McKinnon
1 On 4/25/2013 19:50, Alan McKinnon wrote:
2 > On 26/04/2013 01:42, William Kenworthy wrote:
3 >> Does anyone know a good guide to using time sync in VM's, for both
4 >> windows and linux (gentoo) guests using libvirt? Especially for guests
5 >> that are resumed, or the whole virtualisation system is hibernated? (ntp
6 >> refuses to resync after guest pause/save/restore/resume (known problem),
7 >> even with "tinker panic 0"
8 >
9 >
10 > That's not a bug, it's by design.
11 >
12 > If ntpd detects the clock is out by more than X seconds [1], it will not
13 > try to correct the difference, concluding that something is wrong and a
14 > human must decide. It can't easily tell the difference between a resumed
15 > guest (or even that it was resumed at all) and a severe problem.
16 >
17 > We fixed this by taking the easy route of least resistance;
18 >
19 > 1. run ntpdate on startup/restart once before ntpd starts
20 > 2. start ntpd as normal
21 > 3. a colleague wrote a $MAGIC_HOOK to detect resumed guests that runs
22 > ntpdate once
23 >
24 > True, it's a brutal solution and uses a baseball bat where some finesse
25 > might be less ugly, but it suits our needs just fine.
26 >
27 > [1] I forget what X is and am too lazy to look it up. Is it 30 seconds
28 > or thereabouts?
29 >
30 >
31
32 "When first started, the daemon normally polls the servers listed in the
33 configuration file at 64-s intervals. In order to allow a sufficient
34 number of samples for the NTP algorithms to reliably discriminate
35 between correctly operating servers and possible intruders, at least
36 four valid messages from the majority of servers and peers listed in the
37 configuration file is required before the daemon can set the local
38 clock. However, if the difference between the client time and server
39 time is greater than the panic threshold, which defaults to 1000 s, the
40 daemon will send a message to the system log and shut down without
41 setting the clock." [0]
42
43 [0] - http://doc.ntp.org/4.1.1/debug.htm
44 --
45 staticsafe
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Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-user] Server system date synchronizaion William Kenworthy <billk@×××××××××.au>