SOLVED System is going back in time (wrong date)

[emarj]

Hi guys!

Here I am with this new weird issue. I am running FreeNAS 11.3-U3.1 (updating now to U3.2) and my system suddenly goes back in time.

I experienced this looking at some files modification dates and I realized the date was off by 7 days and few hours. I had a look at the NTP servers page and everything is fine (never touched anything there). I rebooted the system and everything went back to normal.

Few minutes ago I realized the system went back in time again:

Code:

Jun 22 00:45:05 TheBox kernel: bge0: promiscuous mode enabled
Jun 22 00:45:05 TheBox kernel: vnet0.1: promiscuous mode enabled
Jun 22 00:45:09 TheBox kernel: lo0: link state changed to UP
Jun 22 00:45:09 TheBox kernel: lo0: link state changed to UP
8 12:03:21 TheBox kernel: lo0: link state changed to UP
Jun 19 00:00:00 TheBox syslog-ng[934]: Configuration reload request received, reloading configuration;
Jun 19 00:00:00 TheBox syslog-ng[934]: Configuration reload finished;

As you can imagine this is no good since, for example, certain data is getting overwritten (for example metric reports). I have yet to understand what is happening to zfs snapshot. Any ideas on where to look? I don't see anything weird in debug.log

I didn't change anything in particular lately.

Thanks a lot

 

[Samuel Tai]

You may need to set a sysctl tunable kern.timecounter.hardware, based on which timecounter listed in sysctl kern.timecounter.choice has the highest quality. Note, timecounters may lie (on my system, TSC has quality 1000, but drifts uncontrollably), so you may have to try the 2nd or 3rd best.

 

[emarj]

Thanks for your reply.

I am noticing now that I have a terrible drifting problem too.

The output of the command is:

Code:

kern.timecounter.choice: ACPI-fast(900) HPET(950) i8254(0) TSC-low(1000) dummy(-1000000)

I will try HPET and see if drifts less.

The fact is that the system has been stable for 2 years and this is happening only now. Any idea on what could have changed?

 

[emarj]

UPDATE:

I switched to HPET and the drift seems to have stopped. Thanks for your tip.

Knowing nothing about this before, I found this writing useful: https://forum.directadmin.com/threa...ntp-and-clock-still-missing-right-time.52291/

Still curious about what suddenly caused this issue. Should I check the CMOS battery? In your situation was drifting right from the beginning?

Thanks again, you saved my bacon! As they say

 

[Samuel Tai]

UPDATE:

I switched to HPET and the drift seems to have stopped. Thanks for your tip.

Knowing nothing about this before, I found this writing useful: https://forum.directadmin.com/threa...ntp-and-clock-still-missing-right-time.52291/

Still curious about what suddenly caused this issue. Should I check the CMOS battery? In your situation was drifting right from the beginning?

Thanks again, you saved my bacon! As they say

On my system, TSC drifted at the very beginning. In your case, since it was stable for 2 years, FreeNAS security updates to address Spectre/Meltdown may have contributed to recent TSC instability, according to Wikipedia.

 

[emarj]

Really interesting. I learned something new. Thanks a lot again!