Re: NTP / RTC problem driving me absolutely INSANE!
Thanks for you perseverance Rick. Unfortunately your advice did not work. I followed your instruction to the letter and still OSX is thinking it's an hour behind i.e. OSX thinks it's 8.45am when the RTC says its 9.45am (which is correct), if I let OSX do its NTP thing then when I reboot Debian thinks it's 10.45am. Debian has the RTC and sysclock in sync regardless of reboots / shutdown etc.
It's definitely a problem with OSX and I can't figure it out. OSX was only installed about ten days ago, so it's not a BST issue as far as I can see. NTP is set to sync to Apple / Europe and the correct timezone is set to Europe/London (GMT) in OSX. I think I'm just going to call it quits as OSX will be blitzed when I get my new desktop. I've only had a system capable of running OSX for about three weeks now and I haven't got a clue how to use it. I don't really see the point in persevering when I have used Debian or Ubuntu as my main OS for about five years now and will continue to do so. If I use OSX for now I'll have to remember that it's an hour behind.
Thanks once again for all your help and advice, sorry that it didn't work!
regards,
Ananda
On Sat, 10 Feb 2007 04:08:04 -0500
Rick Thomas <rbthomas55@pobox.com> wrote:
> OK, It looks like your hardware clock (as you properly call RTC) is
> wrongly set to BST (British for "Daylight Savings Time") probably
> because you did your MacOS-X install in the Summer. That's pretty
> easily fixed.
>
> Boot into MacOS-X. Disable ntp using the system preferences gui.
> Then, make sure your Timezone is set to Europe/London. and, if you
> can, tell it that your are *not* currently in Daylight Savings Time
> (MacOS-X may not need that -- I don't remember. If not, it doesn't
> matter.) Make sure you do things in the specified order. Do not
> reset the clock. MacOS-X will probably think the time is one hour
> off from what your watch says. Ignore it for the time being.
>
> Next, running Linux, first make sure your system clock (the software
> one maintained by the kernel) is OK. If NTP seems to be happy and
> the date command gives reasonable output (including the timezone
> part). You're probably OK there.
>
> Next, as superuser, type the following at the bash prompt:
> mv -i /etc/adjtime /etc/adjtime.SAVE
> hwclock --utc --systohc
> clock ; date
> Now your RTC and software clock are synchronized. Your hardware
> clock and kernel clock are set to UTC and your local timezone is set
> to Europe/London, because your haven't changed that. When Summer
> rolls around, your hardware clock and kernel clock will still be in
> UTC, but the date display libraries (as used by the "date" command)
> will adjust for Daylight Savings, and display BST.
>
> Then, back in MacOS-X, use the system preferences gui to make sure
> your timezone is still set to Europe/London, and the system's idea of
> time corresponds to your watch. If so, re-enable NTP. If not.
> Something else is wrong and we'll have to dig further.
>
> Enjoy!
>
> Rick
>
>
> On Feb 10, 2007, at 3:02 AM, Ananda Samaddar wrote:
>
> > Thanks for the help this is what the command you suggested gave:
> >
> > Sat Feb 10 07:50:29 UTC 2007
> > time in rtc is Sat Feb 10 08:50:30 2007
> > Sat Feb 10 08:50:30 2007
> >
> > So I'm guessing that it's down to Debian making a mess of things
> > and not OSX. OSX must read the RTC see that it's an hour too fast
> > and correct it. To be honest I really don't know where to go from
> > here and do require a bit of hand holding. To think I used Debian
> > for 5 and Ubuntu for 2 years on X86! So the RTC is one hour two
> > fast according to the command output. Why doesn't Debian adjust
> > the value of the RTC? I'm sorry but I'm a bit baffled and need a
> > hand. Tzconfig tells me I'm set to Europe/London which is right.
> > Why doesn't Debian just set up time by checking the RTC at boot
> > up. It's obviously not changinging the RTC on reboot / shutdown
> > because if I was to boot into OSX now with the RTC one hour two
> > fast OSX would recognise it. I've just checked and all the scripts
> > for hwclock are symlinked correctly too. I also have rtc support
> > in the kernel, which is custom compiled. But the kernel does say
> > that if fails to access rtc0.
> >
> > Sorry this has been a bit of a rambling message that I hope makes
> > some sense. Any further advice much appreciated.
> >
> > regards,
> >
> > Ananda
> >
> >
> > On Sat, 10 Feb 2007 02:39:20 -0500
> > Rick Thomas <rbthomas55@pobox.com> wrote:
> >
> >> It sounds like a timezone problem. It could be one or both of two
> >> things:
> >>
> >> 1) Your hardware CMOS clock is set to something other than UTC or
> >> local time. For Linux, it must be one or the other -- UTC is
> >> preferable.
> >>
> >> In Linux as super-user, at the bash prompt type "(export TZ=UTC ;
> >> date ; clock)" (without the quotes, but with the parens).
> >> The three times it prints should be identical and equal to the
> >> present time in UTC. If, as seems likely, you're in GB and "Summer
> >> Time" is not in effect, then it should also be the same as your local
> >> time.
> >>
> >> 2) Either MacOS or Linux has the wrong timezone. My guess (assuming
> >> you're in GB) is that one or the other is set to BST, even though it
> >> is manifestly *not* summer in the Northern Hemisphere right now.
> >>
> >> Hope that helps!
> >>
> >>
> >> Rick
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Feb 9, 2007, at 7:56 PM, Ananda Samaddar wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hello everyone,
> >>>
> >>> by now you're probably mostly familiar with the trials and
> >>> tribulations I faced moving to a new architecture but there is one
> >>> thing that is really annoying me!
> >>>
> >>> I have NTPD running synced to four servers here in the UK and one
> >>> in France which works fine. The correct time is shown and
> >>> everything's ok. The problem is when I boot to OSX it always shows
> >>> the time as being one hour behind and corrects it. Fair enough.
> >>> If I then reboot into Debian it shows the time to be one hour
> >>> ahead. You'd think that NTP would just correct the time
> >>> accordingly. It does but if I'm logged into GNOME which I use as
> >>> the desktop it blanks the screen and no matter what I try I cannot
> >>> get back to GNOME or a console terminal. If I reboot after OSX and
> >>> log into a terminal while I'm using the terminal GDM informs me
> >>> that the greeter (the default Etch one) is crashing and changes it
> >>> to the old school one from Potato! The only solution is a hard
> >>> reset.
> >>
>
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