Hi there, I got a daily cron (rdate to local time server) job wich adjusts time and which constantly gives me headache. Every day my dovecot suicides with: "dovecot: Time just moved backwards by 11 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now." Of course my onboard clock is constantly off by more than 5 secs. I don't want to abandon time synchronization and I want to use dovecot. Maybe a -HUP signal would do? What do you propose? -- Chaos greets U
Better time synchronization. Use ntpd to always keep your time in sync. It should never have to adjust by more than a few microseconds and Dovecot has no problem with that. -Ben On 4/8/07, Chaos Engine <haos.engine at gmail.com> wrote:> Hi there, > I got a daily cron (rdate to local time server) job wich adjusts time and > which constantly gives me headache. > Every day my dovecot suicides with: > > "dovecot: Time just moved backwards by 11 seconds. This might cause a lot of > problems, so I'll just kill myself now." > > Of course my onboard clock is constantly off by more than 5 secs. > I don't want > to abandon time synchronization and I want to use dovecot. Maybe a > -HUP signal would do? What do you propose? > > > -- > Chaos greets U >
At 7:25 PM +0200 4/8/07, Chaos Engine wrote:>Hi there, >I got a daily cron (rdate to local time server) job wich adjusts time and >which constantly gives me headache. >Every day my dovecot suicides with: > >"dovecot: Time just moved backwards by 11 seconds. This might cause a lot of >problems, so I'll just kill myself now." > >Of course my onboard clock is constantly off by more than 5 secs.How "of course?" The last time I had a machine's NTP synch stop working, it diverged less than 2 seconds from reality in a week. Looking at a few machines where the LOM cards have RTC's independent of the motherboard RTC's, I see divergence of 0-4 seconds over the past 2 months.>I don't want >to abandon time synchronization and I want to use dovecot. Maybe a >-HUP signal would do? What do you propose?3 options 1. Repair your hardware. Gaining 5 seconds per day is not normal, and really should not be tolerated in a system that has to converse with other machines. 2. Set up something that will do the adjustment for you on a more continuous basis. Xntpd will track your drift and keep you more in sync on a continuous basis by slewing the clock rather than stepping it back daily. 3. Make that cron job smarter but stopping Dovecot (and anything else that might care about time moving backwards) ahead of the change, and then waiting until your clock is back ahead of that to restart them. There are technical strategies (e.g. Maildir naming) which rely on the assumption of the clock never repeating the same second twice. -- Bill Cole bill at scconsult.com
Chaos Engine wrote:> Hi there, > I got a daily cron (rdate to local time server) job wich adjusts time and > which constantly gives me headache. > Every day my dovecot suicides with: > > "dovecot: Time just moved backwards by 11 seconds. This might cause a > lot of > problems, so I'll just kill myself now." > > Of course my onboard clock is constantly off by more than 5 secs. > I don't want > to abandon time synchronization and I want to use dovecot. Maybe a > -HUP signal would do? What do you propose? > >If your hardware isn't on the verge of a total nervous breakdown - are you currently on a UPS? Bad power could lead to that kind of clock loss. And I'd suggest switching to ntpd instead of a daily cron - lot less maintenance headaches. -- Daniel
Chaos Engine wrote:> > Of course my onboard clock is constantly off by more than 5 secs. > I don't want > to abandon time synchronization and I want to use dovecot. Maybe a > -HUP signal would do? What do you propose? > >Not too long ago there was a similar question. You can simply recompile dovecot with one of the defines changed to whatever is going to suit you (putting aside that ">constantly off by 5 sec" is just ... strange).