From owner-freebsd-questions  Fri Mar 14 11:46:49 1997
Return-Path: <owner-questions>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA07725
          for questions-outgoing; Fri, 14 Mar 1997 11:46:49 -0800 (PST)
Received: from horst.bfd.com (horst.bfd.com [204.160.242.10])
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA07715
          for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.com>; Fri, 14 Mar 1997 11:46:34 -0800 (PST)
Received: from harlie.bfd.com (bastion.bfd.com [204.160.242.14]) by horst.bfd.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA03372; Fri, 14 Mar 1997 11:44:33 -0800 (PST)
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 11:44:32 -0800 (PST)
From: "Eric J. Schwertfeger" <ejs@bfd.com>
To: mark thompson <thompson@tgsoft.com>
cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.com
Subject: Re: ntpdate
In-Reply-To: <199703141817.KAA06916@squirrel.tgsoft.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.95.970314113834.3425A-100000@harlie.bfd.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk



On Fri, 14 Mar 1997, mark thompson wrote:

> I have ntpdate running out of cron every couple of hours. Each time it
> runs, it adjusts the clock back about .4 seconds... this would be about
> 5 seconds a day or 2 minutes a month. 

> I am quite willing to believe that the clock in my PC gains 2 minutes a
> month. What puzzles me is that the comments in ntpdate seem to suggest
> that *it* believes that the system will compensate the hardware clock to
> make this error disappear, kinda like those self-adjusting car clocks.

Ha, got one here that gains 2 minutes in 2 hours :-)  And yes, we tried
replacing the CMOS battery.

If you want the error to correct itself, run xntpd, not ntpdate.  ntpdate
runs once, adjusts the clock, then goes away.  xntpd constantly runs,
eventually backs of to checking every 15 minutes, and will skew the timer
between checks.