adjtimex EINVALs in 3.18.5 (and 3.19)

adjtimex EINVALs in 3.18.5 (and 3.19)

[Josh Boyer]

Hi Sasha and John,

As we rolled out 3.18.5 in Fedora, we've had a number of people
complain about chrony no longer working when they reboot.  It seems
the calls to adjtimex chrony is making are failing, and then it fails
to start.  Looking at the changelog, I see "time: adjtimex: Validate
the ADJ_FREQUENCY values" is in 3.18.5.

Here is the log from one of the bugs[1]:

Jan 31 08:33:17 elissa.gathman.org chronyd[722]: Frequency -35.554 +/-
1.838 ppm read from /var/lib/chrony/drift
Jan 31 08:33:17 elissa.gathman.org chronyd[722]: Fatal error :
adjtimex failed for set_frequency, freq_ppm=-3.5554e+01
required_freq=3.5554e+01 required_tick=10000
Jan 31 08:33:17 elissa.gathman.org chronyd[718]: adjtimex failed for
set_frequency, freq_ppm=-3.5554e+01 required_freq=3.5554e+01
required_tick=10000

I have no idea if what it's trying to do is valid or not, but it
definitely isn't happy.  And that is kind of the crux of the issue.
If those values are invalid now, what should these users do?  Should
they delete the drift file?  All they know is that something that
worked before doesn't.

[1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1188074

josh

Re: adjtimex EINVALs in 3.18.5 (and 3.19)

[John Stultz]

On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 5:34 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer@fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> Hi Sasha and John,
>
> As we rolled out 3.18.5 in Fedora, we've had a number of people
> complain about chrony no longer working when they reboot.  It seems
> the calls to adjtimex chrony is making are failing, and then it fails
> to start.  Looking at the changelog, I see "time: adjtimex: Validate
> the ADJ_FREQUENCY values" is in 3.18.5.
>
> Here is the log from one of the bugs[1]:
>
> Jan 31 08:33:17 elissa.gathman.org chronyd[722]: Frequency -35.554 +/-
> 1.838 ppm read from /var/lib/chrony/drift
> Jan 31 08:33:17 elissa.gathman.org chronyd[722]: Fatal error :
> adjtimex failed for set_frequency, freq_ppm=-3.5554e+01
> required_freq=3.5554e+01 required_tick=10000
> Jan 31 08:33:17 elissa.gathman.org chronyd[718]: adjtimex failed for
> set_frequency, freq_ppm=-3.5554e+01 required_freq=3.5554e+01
> required_tick=10000
>
> I have no idea if what it's trying to do is valid or not, but it
> definitely isn't happy.  And that is kind of the crux of the issue.
> If those values are invalid now, what should these users do?  Should
> they delete the drift file?  All they know is that something that
> worked before doesn't.
>
> [1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1188074


Thanks for the heads up!
This is the second report that landed in my box this morning so there
def is an issue and I'm working on it.

thanks
-john