ntpd hangs under FBSD 8

Fri Feb 19 17:30:24 UTC 2010

I posted this originally on the -questions list but did not make any headway. We have an application where the user can change the date/time via a GUI. One of the options the user has is to specify that the time is to be synced using ntp. Our coding worked fine under BSD 7 but since we've moved to BSD 8 we've encountered a problem where the command that we initiate from the GUI:

ntpd -g -q

to perform the initial time sync is hanging indefinitely. Logs we've captured do not give any clues. This is the log from a BSD 7 system produced when this ntpd command is run:

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[3578]: logging to file /var/log/ntpd.log

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[3578]: ntpd 4.2.0-a Sun Feb 24 09:12:07 UTC 2008 (1)

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[3578]: precision = 1.676 usec

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[3578]: kernel time sync status 2040

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[3578]: frequency initialized -10.706 PPM from /var/db/ntpd.drift

17 Feb 06:35:45 ntpd[3578]: synchronized to 198.186.191.229, stratum=2

17 Feb 06:35:45 ntpd[3578]: time slew +0.003648 s

and this is the log from a BSD 8 system:

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[2293]: logging to file /var/log/ntpd.log

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[2293]: precision = 1.676 usec

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[2293]: Listening on interface #0 wildcard, 0.0.0.0#123 Disabled

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[2293]: Listening on interface #1 wildcard, ::#123 Disabled

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[2293]: Listening on interface #2 nic0, fe80::2a0:d1ff:fee3:53cc#123 Enabled

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[2293]: Listening on interface #3 nic1, fe80::2a0:d1ff:fee3:53cd#123 Enabled

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[2293]: Listening on interface #4 lo0, fe80::1#123 Enabled

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[2293]: Listening on interface #5 lo0, ::1#123 Enabled

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[2293]: Listening on interface #6 lo0, 127.0.0.1#123 Enabled

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[2293]: Listening on interface #7 lagg0, 192.168.17.46#123 Enabled

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[2293]: Listening on routing socket on fd #29 for interface updates

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[2293]: kernel time sync status 2040

17 Feb 06:35:36 ntpd[2293]: frequency initialized -10.706 PPM from /var/db/ntpd.drift

It never gets past this last log line and we have to do a kill -9 on the ntpd process. The ntp.conf file we're using is

# General Configuration

server 0.us.pool.ntp.org

server 1.us.pool.ntp.org

server 2.us.pool.ntp.org

server 3.us.pool.ntp.org

# Drift file

driftfile /var/db/ntpd.drift

The versions of the two ntpd binaries are different--4.2.0-a for FBSD 7 and 4.2.4p5 for FBSD 8. Someone suggested that I try the command:

ntpq -pc rv localhost

But I'm not sure how to interpret the output. On a FBSD 7 system I get this:

     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter

==============================================================================

+169.229.70.183  169.229.128.214  3 u   40  512   37    7.921    9.170   8.836

*208.75.88.4     192.12.19.20     2 u   43  512   37   12.049    8.224   8.168

+217.160.254.116 209.51.161.238   2 u   38  512   37   55.111   -7.128  10.347

+198.247.173.220 128.206.12.130   3 u   39  512   37   47.401   -1.149   3.659

status=c624 sync_alarm, sync_ntp, 2 events, event_peer/strat_chg, version="ntpd 4.2.0-a Sun Feb 24 09:12:07 UTC 2008 (1)", processor="amd64", system="FreeBSD/7.0-RELEASE-p9", leap=11, stratum=16, precision=-20, rootdelay=0.000, rootdispersion=8.340, peer=25349, refid=INIT, reftime=00000000.00000000  Wed, Feb  6 2036 22:28:16.000, poll=4, clock=cf26c2d5.ea2b4541  Wed, Feb 17 2010 11:32:37.914, state=1, offset=0.000, frequency=-13.269, jitter=0.001, stability=0.000

and on a FBSD 8 system I get this:

     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter

==============================================================================

assID=0 status=c011 sync_alarm, sync_unspec, 1 event, event_restart, version="ntpd 4.2.4p5-a (1)", processor="amd64", system="FreeBSD/8.0-CURRENT", leap=11, stratum=16, precision=-19, rootdelay=0.000, rootdispersion=0.000, peer=0, refid=INIT,

reftime=00000000.00000000  Wed, Feb  6 2036 22:28:16.000, poll=6,

clock=cf26c4d1.d21b33f1  Wed, Feb 17 2010 11:41:05.820, state=1, offset=0.000, frequency=-14.299, jitter=0.002, noise=0.002, stability=0.000, tai=0

169.229.70.183  .INIT.          16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000   0.002

208.75.88.4     .INIT.          16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000   0.002

217.160.254.116 .INIT.          16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000   0.002

198.137.202.16  .INIT.          16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000   0.002

In the case of the FBSD8 output, I collected this while one of these hangs was happening. The most obvious difference is the .INIT. entries, but there also appear to be several "0.0" type of entries that look like the ntpd process is stuck in some kind of initialization state.

Anyone have any ideas what's going on here?