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Date:      Wed, 05 Jun 2019 12:42:02 -0700
From:      "Ronald F. Guilmette" <rfg@tristatelogic.com>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: ntpd configutration -- a small suggestion from the peanut gallery
Message-ID:  <52339.1559763722@segfault.tristatelogic.com>
In-Reply-To: <58688a77362d7caad70df844d5077d0916f7f944.camel@smormegpa.no>

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In message <58688a77362d7caad70df844d5077d0916f7f944.camel@smormegpa.no>, 
Matthias Oestreicher <matthias@smormegpa.no> wrote:

>> Did I just miss those ntpd death messages somehow?
>Sorry, I've never seen ntpd exit due to too big offset and I don't know how that would
>show in /var/log/messages.

It would appear that, most probably, nobody knows what the ntpd suicide log
messages look like, because it doesn't actually produce any (contrary to
what the man page says).

>Anyway, even if it seems to work now, I'd check if your time is based on localtime or
>GMT. It's recommended to use GMT, I never use localtime personally.

For me, I prefer local time.  When I type "date" I don't really give a
flying fig what time it is in London.  I'm in California.

>In your original question you said:"off by several hours"...

I don't think I said anything like that, but anyway,. yes, it is possible
that my BIOS clock was set way way off.  (I actually think that it was set
quite close to actual local time, but I could be wrong about that.)

>and that's usually caused by
>having FreeBSD configured to use localtime, while the hardware clock in the BIOS is set
>to GMT (or maybe the otherway around).

Yes.  Most likely the other way around in my case.

>This happend to me once, when I accidentally
>chose localtime during install, while I had BIOS clock set to GMT. I was totally
>confused and wondered where that offset came from, until I got the hint to remove
>/etc/wall_cmos_clock on the forums.
>
>That said, check if the file /etc/wall_cmos_clock exists and if, remove it (it's an
>empty file).

Well, *that* is bloody confusing.  I thought that someone here just recommended
to me that I make suere that I *do* have this file... *not* that I don't have
it.

>Normally, neither the -g option nor sync_on_start should be needed, if the hardware
>clock in your computer's BIOS is correctly set to GMT. Doesn't hurt to use them, but if
>ntpd does not work without, I'd check the clock.

See above and my various other messages.  I need to keep the BIOS clock set
to local time for reasons having nothing to do with FreeBSD.

Anyway, no worries.  I'm a happy camper now.  Ntpd is running and all is
well with the world.


Regards,
rfg



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