[Dovecot] Time moved backwards errors
Hello,
I am experiencing a number of 'Time moved backwards errors' such as:
Mar 27 11:38:20 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: imap-login: Time just moved backwards by 729 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards Mar 27 15:20:10 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: Time just moved backwards by 4214 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards Mar 29 11:08:59 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: imap-login: Time just moved backwards by 4341 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards
on my Centos 5.2 openvz - based VPS
I have raised the issue with my VPS provider, who are responding that 'the jury is still out' as to whether this is a system, or Dovecot problem.
Reading the TimeMovedBackwards article on the Dovecot wiki, and the kernel mailing list thread referred to on it, it would seem quite apparent that this is caused by a failure of the gettimeofday() function to reliably return the correct value.
If anyone has any advice as to how I could proceed to fix this (I currently have a watch on the Dovecot service which restarts it after any failures) or how I should best phrase this to get it resolved 'upstream' by the VPS provider, I would be very grateful.
Thank you,
Patrick Vale
time should *never* move backwards. OSes (and programs) assume time is always moving forward. Injure your VPS provider.
On 2009 Apr 02 (Thu) at 12:49:43 +0100 (+0100), Bloke wrote: :Hello, : :I am experiencing a number of 'Time moved backwards errors' such as: : :Mar 27 11:38:20 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: imap-login: Time just moved backwards by 729 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards :Mar 27 15:20:10 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: Time just moved backwards by 4214 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards :Mar 29 11:08:59 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: imap-login: Time just moved backwards by 4341 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards : :on my Centos 5.2 openvz - based VPS : :I have raised the issue with my VPS provider, who are responding that 'the jury is still out' as to whether this is a system, or Dovecot problem. : :Reading the TimeMovedBackwards article on the Dovecot wiki, and the kernel mailing list thread referred to on it, it would seem quite apparent that this is caused by a failure of the gettimeofday() function to reliably return the correct value. : :If anyone has any advice as to how I could proceed to fix this (I currently have a watch on the Dovecot service which restarts it after any failures) or how I should best phrase this to get it resolved 'upstream' by the VPS provider, I would be very grateful. : :Thank you, : :Patrick Vale :
-- Valerie: Aww, Tom, you're going maudlin on me ... Tom: I reserve the right to wax maudlin as I wane eloquent ... -- Tom Chapin
On 2009 Apr 02 (Thu) at 12:49:43 +0100 (+0100), Bloke wrote:
Hello,
I am experiencing a number of 'Time moved backwards errors' such as:
Mar 27 11:38:20 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: imap-login: Time just moved backwards by 729 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards Mar 27 15:20:10 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: Time just moved backwards by 4214 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards Mar 29 11:08:59 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: imap-login: Time just moved backwards by 4341 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards
on my Centos 5.2 openvz - based VPS
I have raised the issue with my VPS provider, who are responding that 'the jury is still out' as to whether this is a system, or Dovecot problem.
FWIW I saw this the other day on a real-machine CentOS 5.2 system after a severe crash in which the system put all the drives into read-only mode. The machine had to be power-cycled and dovecot complained the clock was off by 5 minutes. Maybe something else going on with the 2.6.18 kernel? Dunno.
Mark
On Thu, 2 Apr 2009, Mark Hedges wrote:
On 2009 Apr 02 (Thu) at 12:49:43 +0100 (+0100), Bloke wrote:
Hello,
I am experiencing a number of 'Time moved backwards errors' such as:
Mar 27 11:38:20 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: imap-login: Time just moved backwards by 729 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards Mar 27 15:20:10 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: Time just moved backwards by 4214 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards Mar 29 11:08:59 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: imap-login: Time just moved backwards by 4341 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards
on my Centos 5.2 openvz - based VPS
I have raised the issue with my VPS provider, who are responding that 'the jury is still out' as to whether this is a system, or Dovecot problem.
FWIW I saw this the other day on a real-machine CentOS 5.2 system after a severe crash in which the system put all the drives into read-only mode. The machine had to be power-cycled and dovecot complained the clock was off by 5 minutes. Maybe something else going on with the 2.6.18 kernel? Dunno.
I see this all of the time on an EL4 machine when it is under high load. The clock is synced to ntp but I still get dovecot killing itself. Sometimes ntp looses sync but not always.
I have a cronjob check every 5 minutes to see if dovecot is running and if not restart it. I know that is not the right answer and I hate things like that but until I figure out how to fix it or upgrade the machine (coming soon) I will live with it.
I am just throwing this out in case it means anything to someone else.
FWIW dovecot version == dovecot-1.0.3-14
Regards,
-- Tom Diehl tdiehl@rogueind.com Spamtrap address mtd123@rogueind.com
On 4/2/2009, Tom Diehl (tdiehl@rogueind.com) wrote:
I see this all of the time on an EL4 machine when it is under high load. The clock is synced to ntp but I still get dovecot killing itself. Sometimes ntp looses sync but not always.
Hopefully you meant ntpd, not ntpdate... but I believe the OP was using a VM, so ntpd is not an option...
--
Best regards,
Charles
On Fri, 2009-04-03 at 05:43, Charles Marcus wrote:
On 4/2/2009, Tom Diehl (tdiehl@rogueind.com) wrote:
I see this all of the time on an EL4 machine when it is under high load. The clock is synced to ntp but I still get dovecot killing itself. Sometimes ntp looses sync but not always.
Hopefully you meant ntpd, not ntpdate... but I believe the OP was using a VM, so ntpd is not an option...
How is that so? we use some vmware and xen setups, and ntpd works fine on both
On 4/2/2009 6:05 PM, Noel Butler wrote:
I see this all of the time on an EL4 machine when it is under high load. The clock is synced to ntp but I still get dovecot killing itself. Sometimes ntp looses sync but not always.
Hopefully you meant ntpd, not ntpdate... but I believe the OP was using a VM, so ntpd is not an option...
How is that so? we use some vmware and xen setups, and ntpd works fine on both
http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Support/KnownOsIssues#Section_9.2.2.
--
Best regards,
Charles
On Fri, 2009-04-03 at 20:08, Charles Marcus wrote:
Hopefully you meant ntpd, not ntpdate... but I believe the OP was using a VM, so ntpd is not an option...
How is that so? we use some vmware and xen setups, and ntpd works fine on both
http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Support/KnownOsIssues#Section_9.2.2.
interesting, I run it fine on both, I skewed the clock on host and guest on boot set correct time
On Thu, 2 Apr 2009, Charles Marcus wrote:
On 4/2/2009, Tom Diehl (tdiehl@rogueind.com) wrote:
I see this all of the time on an EL4 machine when it is under high load. The clock is synced to ntp but I still get dovecot killing itself. Sometimes ntp looses sync but not always.
Hopefully you meant ntpd, not ntpdate... but I believe the OP was using
ntpd.
a VM, so ntpd is not an option...
Well actually it is. At least with xen and I think vmware. I run ntpd on dom0 and the domU's sync to it. In my case the EL4 machine is a real machine and running ntpd.
Regards,
-- Tom Diehl tdiehl@rogueind.com Spamtrap address mtd123@rogueind.com
Why not just run ntpd and be done with it, ensure you start ntpd with "-g" option
On Fri, 2009-04-03 at 03:11, Tom Diehl wrote:
On Thu, 2 Apr 2009, Mark Hedges wrote:
On 2009 Apr 02 (Thu) at 12:49:43 +0100 (+0100), Bloke wrote:
Hello,
I am experiencing a number of 'Time moved backwards errors' such as:
Mar 27 11:38:20 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: imap-login: Time just moved backwards by 729 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards Mar 27 15:20:10 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: Time just moved backwards by 4214 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards Mar 29 11:08:59 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: imap-login: Time just moved backwards by 4341 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards
on my Centos 5.2 openvz - based VPS
I have raised the issue with my VPS provider, who are responding that 'the jury is still out' as to whether this is a system, or Dovecot problem.
FWIW I saw this the other day on a real-machine CentOS 5.2 system after a severe crash in which the system put all the drives into read-only mode. The machine had to be power-cycled and dovecot complained the clock was off by 5 minutes. Maybe something else going on with the 2.6.18 kernel? Dunno.
I see this all of the time on an EL4 machine when it is under high load. The clock is synced to ntp but I still get dovecot killing itself. Sometimes ntp looses sync but not always.
I have a cronjob check every 5 minutes to see if dovecot is running and if not restart it. I know that is not the right answer and I hate things like that but until I figure out how to fix it or upgrade the machine (coming soon) I will live with it.
I am just throwing this out in case it means anything to someone else.
FWIW dovecot version == dovecot-1.0.3-14
Regards,
Why not just run ntpd and be done with it, ensure you start ntpd with "-g" option
It's more than this. ntpd should be started ASAP in the boot process, and then as late as possible in the boot process one should run ntp-wait. Only after ntp-wait finishes should time-critical services be started.
H
On Fri, 3 Apr 2009, Noel Butler wrote:
Why not just run ntpd and be done with it, ensure you start ntpd with "-g" option
If you are responding to me (it is hard to tell when you top post) I am running ntpd. I still have the problem described below. I have never used the -g option but the Red Hat init scripts call ntpdate at startup before ntpd starts. In reading the man pg, it would appear that I should get the same results as using the -g switch, since the -g switch only allows 1 large adjustment of the system time.
Regards,
-- Tom Diehl tdiehl@rogueind.com Spamtrap address mtd123@rogueind.com
On Fri, 2009-04-03 at 03:11, Tom Diehl wrote:
On Thu, 2 Apr 2009, Mark Hedges wrote:
On 2009 Apr 02 (Thu) at 12:49:43 +0100 (+0100), Bloke wrote:
Hello,
I am experiencing a number of 'Time moved backwards errors' such as:
Mar 27 11:38:20 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: imap-login: Time just moved backwards by 729 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards Mar 27 15:20:10 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: Time just moved backwards by 4214 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards Mar 29 11:08:59 host-78-129-239-60 dovecot: imap-login: Time just moved backwards by 4341 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards
on my Centos 5.2 openvz - based VPS
I have raised the issue with my VPS provider, who are responding that 'the jury is still out' as to whether this is a system, or Dovecot problem.
FWIW I saw this the other day on a real-machine CentOS 5.2 system after a severe crash in which the system put all the drives into read-only mode. The machine had to be power-cycled and dovecot complained the clock was off by 5 minutes. Maybe something else going on with the 2.6.18 kernel? Dunno.
I see this all of the time on an EL4 machine when it is under high load. The clock is synced to ntp but I still get dovecot killing itself. Sometimes ntp looses sync but not always.
I have a cronjob check every 5 minutes to see if dovecot is running and if not restart it. I know that is not the right answer and I hate things like that but until I figure out how to fix it or upgrade the machine (coming soon) I will live with it.
I am just throwing this out in case it means anything to someone else.
FWIW dovecot version == dovecot-1.0.3-14
Regards,
Top posting has nothing to do with it, take your nazi'ism and put it where someone else might care to listen :) If your name is in the "To" field (even a 5yo can figure that one out) , then I responded to you, and I've seen RH boxes before that dont play like that, hence my suggestion.
On Fri, 2009-04-03 at 16:04, Tom Diehl wrote:
On Fri, 3 Apr 2009, Noel Butler wrote:
Why not just run ntpd and be done with it, ensure you start ntpd with "-g" option
If you are responding to me (it is hard to tell when you top post) I am running ntpd. I still have the problem described below. I have never used the -g option but the Red Hat init scripts call ntpdate at startup before ntpd starts. In reading the man pg, it would appear that I should get the same results as using the -g switch, since the -g switch only allows 1 large adjustment of the system time.
Regards,
participants (7)
-
Bloke
-
Charles Marcus
-
Harlan Stenn
-
Mark Hedges
-
Noel Butler
-
Peter Hessler
-
Tom Diehl