recent ntpd problems

[Gene Heskett]

Greetings;

This somewhat FC2 box has been keeping time quite well since I
finally managed to get the ntpd daemon working, and worked quite well
up thru kernel 2.6.13-rc5.

At 2.6.13-rc6, and now for 2.6.13.1, time synch is not being done and
the time drifts several minutes a day.

I've rebuilt 2.6.13.1 using the 2.6.13-rc5 .config after a make
oldconfig.  I'm not sure if that might fix it, but I found a
vulnerability notice for versions earlier than 4.2.0b, so I've also
been playing with both that, and the version pf 4.2.0a as patched for
FC3.

This latter version does not seem to be writing to /var/log/ntpd.log
at all, so I have no idea what its doing.  So I built it from the
tarball for ntp-dev-4.2.0b, (./configure --prefix=/usr, so it would
overwrite the rpm install) and its still not writing to
/var/log/ntpd.log.  But at least ntpstat says its approaching sync,
as in:

[root at coyote ntp-dev-4.2.0b-20050827]# ntpstat
synchronised to NTP server (64.5.1.129) at stratum 3
   time correct to within 41 ms
   polling server every 64 s

This is while booted to 2.6.13-rc5, which was known to work with the
older, version 4.1.1 ntpd.  Now I'm going to reboot to a 2.6.13.1
made from the 2.6.13-rc5 & a make oldconfig and see if that will work.

It didn't, sync was to the local ntp server only.

Nobody on the kernel list seems to be having this problem with post
2.6.13-rc5 kernels, which is why I'm posting here on the legacy list.

So I've now turned on some IpSec stuff in the .config, and rebuilt
it again.

And, 10 minutes after rebooting to this 2.6.13.1 build, there is still
no logging, and ntpstat is telling me this:

[root at coyote ntp-dev-4.2.0b-20050827]# ntpstat
synchronised to NTP server (64.5.1.130) at stratum 3
   time correct to within 483 ms
   polling server every 64 s

Which is the first time its admitted using an non-local time src when
booted to 2.6.13-rc6 or 2.6.13.1, so maybe I've got it.  I turned on
some IpSec stuff in the .config this time.

Comments anybody?  As in when did it become a requirement to have
IpSec stuff enabled (if indeed thats what fixed it) before ntpd would
run? No firewall on this box, its on another box & no changes have
been made there in many months.

And, secondarily, why is there no logging now so that I have to query
it with ntpstat to see if its running right?  This is with

[root at coyote ntp-dev-4.2.0b-20050827]# ntpd --version
ntpd: ntpd 4.2.0b at 1.1407-o Mon Sep 19 13:24:39 UTC 2005 (1)

installed from the tarball, and the older /etc/ntp/keys and
/etc/ntp/step-tickers from an .rpmsave rewritten over the FC3
installed versions.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
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Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.