Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    NTP Server Time

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Problems Installing or Upgrading pfSense Software
    15 Posts 7 Posters 3.4k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • johnpozJ
      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
      last edited by

      dude if the time was off by 4 hours.. It would show in the system.. Its a stupid widget..

      What does it show for time when you ssh in? and do date

      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Wizard220W
        Wizard220
        last edited by

        Sorry can't answer what the date/time would be if I SSH into the box.  Not running 2.4.X anymore, running 2.3.4.  I no longer am having any time issues since reverting back to 2.3.4.  But something is up with 2.4.X since it is going into my bios and changing the time.  Date is correct but the time is being messed with.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • johnpozJ
          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
          last edited by

          If that was actually the case then forums would be blowing up with people reporting such a problem.

          Your saying your bios time is being changed to be in the wrong timezone.. But the system widget shows the correct timezone and time.  But the ntp status widget shows correct timezone but 4 hours off.. So 4 hours ahead of EDT.. ie New York… So UTC -1 What is that the freaking Azores?

          Makes zero sense dude really...

          An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
          If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
          Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
          SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • A
            Ayelborne
            last edited by

            I saw this same problem when updating 2.4.1 this morning.  No issue with BIOS time being incorrect/reset, but NTP widget time is incorrect.  Seems to be related to this redmine item:

            https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/7714#change-34352

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • johnpozJ
              johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
              last edited by

              Yeah I would say its related for sure..

              // Have to convet the date to UTC time to match the PHP clock not the local client clock.

              You an see that comment in the code..  So my guess is the OP clients timezone was off.  Not sure how he was saying his bios time was being shifted… bios time should be in UTC... But depending on the OS - windows for example sometimes there can be problems when bios is UTC, etc.    Believe there was a reg edit at one time for windows 7, etc.

              its always difficult getting to the bottom of stuff when the OP doesn't post any actual info to work with... Like the status of his ntp server via ntpq etc.  And what the system shows with date command.

              What the php time is.. put a simple phpinfo.php file in /usr/local/www and then call it in your browser to see what php has the timezone set to, etc.

              An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
              If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
              Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
              SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • P
                pfSense4ME
                last edited by

                @ Johnpoz
                Your saying your bios time is being changed to be in the wrong timezone.. But the system widget shows the correct timezone and time.  But the ntp status widget shows correct timezone but 4 hours off.. So 4 hours ahead of EDT.. ie New York… So UTC -1 What is that the freaking Azores?

                Makes zero sense dude really...

                Actually, it kind of does...  I just think the poster is not doing a good job of explaining.  Maybe I can shed some light on the issue and stay clear of the mud.  Here goes nothing...

                I have several computers, some desktops, some laptops, some servers, all from different manufactures (IE: Dell, HP, ASUS, etc). being used as workstations or servers depending on their role.  Some of the systems have Microsoft (necessary evil as a result of my job) loaded as the OS while others have Linux (or BSD, etc.  Example: pfSense on a Dell 7010, pfSense based on BSD. You get the idea.)  OK here's where it gets funky:

                On all of the systems if I access the BIOS and set time to the correct time for my timezone (Eastern) say for example 1:00PM prior to the installation of an OS.  Then depending on the OS I install the BIOS time may "float".  Let me explain.  If I install the Windows OS, set the time and timezone within the OS, shut the system down or restart/reboot and access the BIOS, the time in the BIOS will show the same as the what is in Windows.  However, if I install a Linux or BSD OS, set the date within the OS, shut the system down or restart/reboot and access the BIOS, the time in the BIOS will "float" ahead 4 hours (in my case as I'm in eastern TZ and the DST vs EST is now at -4 hours GMT).  End result is the BIOS time "floats" to compensate for the actual time, being reported in the OS (IE: BIOS time now shows 5:00PM but because of my Eastern -4 hour GMT we get back to 1:00PM actual time reported within the OS).  Thus giving the appearance the system is using a different TZ in the BIOS as a factor to calculate the time.  It's totally weird!  Why non Windows OSes do this I don't know, but from my findings they do regardless of the manufacturer (Dell, HP, ASUS, etc).  I generally use Linux (actually prefer) more so than Windows so it's baffling to me why Linux (or BSD, etc) does it this way.  And yes, when first transitioning away from Windows I went crazy fighting the BIOS time vs. the Linux OS time, now I don't even bother.  What I do wish is that the non-Windows community would "fix" their time value (internal vs BIOS) so as to work more in keeping with the way Windows does it in order to avoid all this confusion.  My findings are based on using steel systems and not virtual systems.  I don't know if that makes a difference or not.

                Hopefully what I described above makes some sense.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • johnpozJ
                  johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                  last edited by

                  Yeah see my edit I was working before you posted.  In the linux world you normally set your bios time to UTC… This is standard practice..

                  An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                  If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                  Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                  SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • peteP
                    pete
                    last edited by

                    Mine is looking OK here.

                    That can I make a request that the NTP time widget include the GPS/PPS time stuff?

                    How do insert an image in the middle of my text and remove it from the bottom of my post?

                    I am used to using forum tools or just

                    ![NTP Dashboard.jpg](/public/imported_attachments/1/NTP Dashboard.jpg)
                    ![NTP Dashboard.jpg_thumb](/public/imported_attachments/1/NTP Dashboard.jpg_thumb)
                    NTPStatus.jpg
                    NTPStatus.jpg_thumb

                    • Pete

                    Auto mater
                    23.09.1-RELEASE (amd64)
                    built on Mon Dec 11 12:24:00 CST 2023
                    FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT
                    PFSense + Qotom - Master
                    PFSense + Jetway - Backup
                    PFSense + Jetway - Backup
                    PFSense + Generic - Backup

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • johnpozJ
                      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                      last edited by

                      "How do insert an image in the middle of my text and remove it from the bottom of my post?"

                      You can't with attachments.  If you want an image inline with your post you would have to put in img tag and link to image hosted somewhere.

                      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • peteP
                        pete
                        last edited by

                        Thank you John.

                        Is there a way to display the GPS/PPS stuff in the NTP widget on the dashboard?

                        • Pete

                        Auto mater
                        23.09.1-RELEASE (amd64)
                        built on Mon Dec 11 12:24:00 CST 2023
                        FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT
                        PFSense + Qotom - Master
                        PFSense + Jetway - Backup
                        PFSense + Jetway - Backup
                        PFSense + Generic - Backup

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • jahonixJ
                          jahonix
                          last edited by

                          @pete:

                          How do insert an image in the middle of my text and remove it from the bottom of my post?

                          Where's the problem with that?

                          I used the URL from one of your attached pictures and used it here with the {img} tag.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • J
                            jclear
                            last edited by

                            A bit of history:  Back in 1980 the IBM PC came with MSDOS on 160K floppies.  No room for TZ files.  So MSDOS set its time directly from the CMOS clock.  So generally you'd set that to local or "wall clock" time.  When folks started porting the UTC based *nix to the PC, provision was made to deal will wall clock CMOS time so as to be able to dual boot nicely.  For FreeBSD, the presence or absence of /etc/wall_cmos_clock was used to tell the kernel if the CMOS time was local or UTC.  See FreeBSD's adjkerntz(8).  Can't tell you how Linux does it, but presumably it has it's own method to coexist with DOS.

                            Checking  my pFsense install ( fresh 2.3.x on an APU2) I don't see /etc/wall_cmos_clock, so presumably the pFsense default is to have the CMOS set to UTC.  But perhaps the OP put pFsense originally on a box with local time in cmos and does have that file.

                            Now I haven't yet migrated my servers from FreeBSD 10 to 11, so don't know if FreeBSD made changes to the process.  But possibly it has changed and pFsense 2.4 picked that up, and maybe that config is confusing the NTP Widget.  Although why the NTP widget is looking at anything other than a NTP query and displaying UTC (NTP doesn't deal with local times at all) is beyond me.  But given OP's NTP peer status his system is probably running time correctly.  It would be worth looking at the system log after a boot to see if the "ntpdate" was jumping the time by 4 hours (assuming pFsense overrides the limiter).  That would be a good indication of confusion between what the kernel thinks is in the CMOS and what actually is.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • First post
                              Last post
                            Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.