Ian Burrell wrote, On 10/17/2008 02:40 PM:
Todd Denniston <Todd.Denniston <at> ssa.crane.navy.mil> writes:
1) you don't need to call hwclock while NTP is running to keep the hardware
clock synced to system time, the kernel hackers "helpfully" put a sneak
circuit in the ntp implementation in the _kernel_ such that if NTP declares a
good sync with the external source, then the kernel will every 11 minutes
write the system time to the hardware clock.
2) (1) messes up /etc/adjtime in two ways
a) the bios time has been set independent of the hwclock use of /etc/adjtime,
so the time since last set is wrong.
b) because of (a) the amount the clock needs adjusted for drift each time
hwclock --adjust is called is now wrong.
You can kind of work around the problem by having your script that calls
hwclock -systohc monitor either the adjtime drift or ntp's connectedness to a
real server and keep the drift the same while ntp has sync, i.e, have the
script keep the original adjtime drift if either the call is being made when
ntp is known to be synced or the drift changes too much towards 0.
I have toyed with the idea of trimming that out* of my kernels, but it would
mean a recompile every time a kernel update happened.
*or at least making it some kind of boot configurable item, and try to get
that patch in the kernel tree.
Why don't you just use the ntpd local clock driver? The Fedora /etc/ntp.conf
has the following lines commented out:
#server 127.127.1.0 # local clock
#fudge 127.127.1.0 stratum 10
Uncommenting those causes ntpd to use the local hardware clock as a backup time
source. ntpd will keep track of the drift and record it in the drift file to
use when starting. It should keep fairly accurate time as long as it
occasionally is connected to the network.
- Ian
1) because in Chris's case you are not using ntp on the machine in question to
get time from elsewhere, there is no elsewhere, i.e., no network. This is not
a `fall back while still disciplined to the local clock`, this is a `we will
never see a _true_ stratum (ntp referenced from a reference clock) anything at
this physical location`.
2) Because the BIOS clock can be looked at under certain circumstances (such
as a box running 24X7X365) as slightly ovenized* and independent of processor
and IO load.
ntpd local clock is subjected to changes due to system processor load and IO
load, i.e., missed interrupts.
*in an air conditioned office space, an on-all-the-time machine should have
temp fluctuations of less than 10F day to day. each day you might see a swing
that is 30F in that day, but when each day is compared the temps at the same
time of the day is much closer, and hwclock does not calculate new drifts in
time spans of less than 1 day.
--
Todd Denniston
Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC Crane)
Harnessing the Power of Technology for the Warfighter
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