NTP is wrong by almost 3 minutes.

AR15USR

I just polled the ntp server pool I'm using (pool.ntp.org) and it is off by the same 5 mins.

sntp 0.pool.ntp.org

When I poll nist it shows the same 5 minute discrepancy

sntp 128.138.141.172

AR15USR

If anyone is interested I switched my ntp servers from ntp.org to the NIST servers and the discrepancy has resolved itself..

pfBasic

That is interesting.

I have been using time.nist.gov for a few days now and my NTP time is still off by a few minutes. System time now matches up but NTP has not resolved itself, I restarted the service over a day ago and it is still off by a few minutes.

Anyone know what the root problem is here, especially now that I am apparently not the only one seeing some issues with time?

AR15USR

I'm sure you do, but just to check you do have your machines set to use your pfsense as the ntp time server?

pfBasic

Some of them are and some aren't what I'm looking at is that the NTP time widget on my pfSense box is not syncing up with time.gov, even though it is using NIST for NTP. My system clock is synced up.

Also, my machines that are using pfsense for time match the incorrect pfsense time widget exactly.

My machines that are not using pfsense for time (cellphone, laptop) match time.gov exactly.

w0w

I just successfully tested time.nist.gov sync without any issue.
Please provide the output of
more /var/etc/ntpd.conf

shinzo

I was having the same problem, running on 2.4 i would select to run NTP on the Lan side and it would never sync. If i manually sync'ed then it would work.

stan-qaz

Some of the NTP tools included with pfSense can be a big help in figuring out what is going wrong. The place to start is likely ntpq:

[2.3.2-RELEASE][root@pfSense.home]/root: ntpq -p
     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter
==============================================================================
*pi-v1.home      .GPS0.           1 u   12   64  377    0.420   -0.034   0.008
+hp400.home      172.16.0.4       2 u   44   64  377    0.412    5.662   0.782
+ntp.cox.net     .GPS.            1 u   14   64  377   51.577    1.667   0.452

The above shows that I am syncing with my Pi while my hp server and Cox Cable NTP servers are available as fallbacks.

The first column is the sync status and is covered in the http://www.ntp.org/ documentation. If you are not selecting servers and syncing to one of them you have a starting place to look for your problem.

I'd go look at at least the quick start at ntp.org and select either a pool or at least three servers to sync to before going on to look for other issues.

dennypage

I finally got around to having a look at the code for the NTP widget. The "Server Time" field is created using some cute dynamic update code that plays games between the http server (aka pfSense) time and the http client browser time. The approach was likely state of the art… in 2003 when it was last updated. Seriously, the code lists compatibility as IE 4.x/5.0, Netscape 4.x/6.0, and Mozilla 1.0.

The short version is that this code is badly need of replacing, and until it is replaced the Server Time field in the NTP widget should simply be ignored.

One more "as time permits" activity. :)

pfBasic

@dennypage:

I finally got around to having a look at the code for the NTP widget. The "Server Time" field is created using some cute dynamic update code that plays games between the http server (aka pfSense) time and the http client browser time. The approach was likely state of the art… in 2003 when it was last updated. Seriously, the code lists compatibility as IE 4.x/5.0, Netscape 4.x/6.0, and Mozilla 1.0.

The short version is that this code is badly need of replacing, and until it is replaced the Server Time field in the NTP widget should simply be ignored.

One more "as time permits" activity. :)

Wow, thank you so much for looking into this! I'm glad that this could resolve into something that will eventually be an improvement to pfSense!

doktornotor

Craptastic JS gone from the widget: https://github.com/pfsense/pfsense/pull/3553

pf_konst

@doktornotor:

Craptastic JS gone from the widget: https://github.com/pfsense/pfsense/pull/3553

Thank you very much!

My NTP widget time was lagging by about 8 minutes.
Your script works fine, and now the NTP widget shows the correct time.

johnpoz

that patch was pushed to master back in feb of 2017… What version of pfsense are you running that you would manually put in that patch?