Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 16:02:34 -0400 (EDT) From: "J. Seth Henry" <jshamlet@comcast.net> To: Nan Wang <nanericwang@hotmail.com> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: RE: The clock is too fast in FreeBSD! Message-ID: <20030527154212.Y9109@alexandria.gambrl01.md.comcast.net>
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Eric, First, you didn't mention how fast the clock was under FreeBSD. If you are talking about minutes/seconds, then you can use ntpd to keep the clock in line. If you have permanent network access, then you can actually keep your clock to within a few milliseconds of the NIST/Navy "official" time. For a server, you really should be running a time synchronization service anyway, negating any clock "problems" in the local OS. Although most useful for multiple servers, even a stand-alone server can benefit from being in agreement with a "standard" clock. As a result, Windows2k/XP, Linux, and FreeBSD all support time synchronization out of the box. My local network has two tier 2 time server (which attach to a navy time server), both of which can be used by rdate on terminals to get the correct time. I have used this setup for years, and the clocks are always the most accurate in the house - such that I use them to set the VCR clock, my own wristwatch, and any other miscellanous non-network attached, clock. However, even with all of that, I haven't noticed a serious problem on any of my FreeBSD systems wrt the clock. An uncorrected clock in FreeBSD seems to lose/gain about 0.5 second per day on standard commodity hardware. Second, FreeBSD 5.0/5.1-BETA are not production ready. I am still using the 4.x-REL series, as they are much more stable. In fact, I will probably wait until 5.2-REL before upgrading my primary app server (it's a dual proc, and can benefit from the new multi-processor support). There may very well be bugs in these newer versions that could be causing your clock problem. I would suggest you try 4.8-REL if you are evaluating FreeBSD for a server environment. If you feel you may have found a problem with FreeBSD 5.1 BETA, please post in the freebsd-hardware list. If the clock is screwed up in the latest versions, I'm sure they would love to know about it now, rather than later. >Hi! >The clock in FreeBSD is too fast! >I tried GENERIC kernel, the BSD clock is still too fast. >the problem is on 5.0 Release, 5.1 BETA1, and 5.1 BETA2. >I have not yet tried 4.x. >I'm using PII 366Mhz Acer notebook w/ 192mb RAM ALi Chipset >but there is no problem on Win98 and Linux(Redhat 8) >I guess, in a Windows system, the timing function read time >from CMOS(Hardware Clock), where as FreeBSD just add itself >which is too dangerous for a server. > >Hope the problem will be solved in future. >good luck. > > >Eric.
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