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

    NTP times jump abruptly

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
    16 Posts 3 Posters 1.4k Views 3 Watching
    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.
    • stephenw10S Offline
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
      last edited by

      Hmm, odd. What happened at that date? Did you upgrade maybe?

      Steve

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • A Offline
        AR15USR
        last edited by

        Well I have been trying to remember anything specific and I can’t. It’s possible it was an upgrade. The auto backups and config backups don’t go back that far to tell by that either.


        2.6.0-RELEASE

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • stephenw10S Offline
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          Check the other monitoring graphs, they should go back that far. You might see a jump in the number or processes or states if it rebooted at that point.

          Steve

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • A Offline
            AR15USR
            last edited by

            Hmm, nothing with that ype of jump either. I did add another VLAN a few weeks earlier than when the NTP jump happened. Not sure that that would cause this though..


            2.6.0-RELEASE

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • stephenw10S Offline
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              Does it remain at those levels if you restart the service? Or restart the firewall? Or set different servers even?

              Steve

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • A Offline
                AR15USR
                last edited by

                I'm experiementing with that now, will report back.

                FYI I am seeing this in the NTP log, not sure if it matters or not:

                Mar 20 13:16:12	ntpd	72425	kernel reports TIME_ERROR: 0x2041: Clock Unsynchronized
                Mar 20 13:16:12	ntpd	72425	kernel reports TIME_ERROR: 0x2041: Clock Unsynchronized
                

                2.6.0-RELEASE

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • stephenw10S Offline
                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                  last edited by

                  I see those at boot, they seem normal. I've never dug into those codes though.

                  Steve

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • A Offline
                    AR15USR
                    last edited by

                    Well I change the nist time servers, disabled the VLAN I added back in Jan, restarted the ntpd service. Nothing seemed to make any difference, you can see the pattern over the past 24hrs (Istarted changing stuff at around 12:30 today)

                    alt text

                    I also see this in the log if it matters:

                    Mar 20 15:31:26	ntpd	52237	frequency error 500 PPM exceeds tolerance 500 PPM
                    

                    2.6.0-RELEASE

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • T Offline
                      tman222
                      last edited by tman222

                      Hi @AR15USR

                      Just a thought - but could this be an indication of a hardware problem with the firewall itself developing? Have a look at this link, especially 3.3.1.1:

                      http://www.ntp.org/ntpfaq/NTP-s-sw-clocks-quality.htm

                      Hope this helps.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • A Offline
                        AR15USR
                        last edited by

                        I suppose its a possibility. This is a Atom C2758 board thats been on constantly for several years. Maybe..


                        2.6.0-RELEASE

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • A Offline
                          AR15USR
                          last edited by

                          Ok, if anyone is interested. Just decided to take a look at the graph again, look what recently happened:

                          alt text


                          2.6.0-RELEASE

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • stephenw10S Offline
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                            last edited by

                            Hmm, well that looks better. Weird, anything else logged at that point when the offset suddenly came down?

                            I myself was struggling with an ntp instance that would not ever sync because, it turned out, the system clock was too inaccurate. It's a VM. I eventually managed to get it working as expected by changing the kern.timecounter.hardware value.

                            Selection_601.png

                            Steve

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • T Offline
                              tman222
                              last edited by

                              That's indeed quite interesting. Did anything change with the system since then (updates, reboots, etc.), or did this correct all on its own sort of randomly?

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • A Offline
                                AR15USR
                                last edited by

                                2 things I can recall: First, a package was recently updated, Snort. Second a device on my network had a system upgrade. I'm not quite sure on the timing of the second as it is controlled remotely. I'm tracking down the details on that...


                                2.6.0-RELEASE

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • A Offline
                                  AR15USR
                                  last edited by

                                  Ok was definitely not the device upgrade, that didn’t happen till the 29th..


                                  2.6.0-RELEASE

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