Hi Buchan,<br><br>Thanks for the response. I will disable the ntp-test. it's running on three hosts and all of them report the same WARNING-output.<br><br>However, the reason I came up with this is that in our network we have some W2K-hosts (the Domain Controllers) who have
(according to Xymon) a time that is not accurate (I'm using the CLOCK option and Xymon thinks they are drifting too far; above
threshold of 30 seconds).<br><br>I wondered: how is this determined on the Windows side? Because when we have a look at this system, the time is correct? It looks like the time difference between the page generation and the send time (12:38:57 - 12:37:19) = 98 seconds off (see below).<br>
<br>The time on the server however IS correct. I've seen it, but since the total MSG-size for these servers is so large (a few hundreds KB to 1 or 2 MB, because of the domain controller function, there are hundreds of open ports - netstat output), it does take some addiotinal time for the Xymon client/server combination, to proces?!<br>
<br>Can I limit this output. For example: do NOT send UDP output? That would be a quick fix solution?<br>Or better: split the output in several files, since the other (netstat) info is valuable, but it should NOT interfere with the normal functionality of Xymon and/of its clients. So the output should be send seperately to the server.<br>
<br>Regards, Peter<br><br><table summary="Topline" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td valign="middle" width="30%" align="right"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="+1" color="silver"><b>Wed Nov 11 12:38:57 2009</b></font>
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<br><br><a name="124e36b3152d04f7_124e325c4a72d0e7_begindata"> </a>
<br><br><center><form action="http://hobbit-cgi/bb-hist.sh" target="_blank" onsubmit="return window.confirm("Je gaat gegevens verzenden naar een externe pagina. \nWeet je het zeker?");"> <input value="HISTORY" type="submit"> <input name="HISTFILE" value="VUWSDC02.timediff" type="hidden"> <input name="ENTRIES" value="50" type="hidden"> <input name="IP" value="132.229.101.11" type="hidden"> <input name="DISPLAYNAME" value="VUWSDC02" type="hidden"> </form>
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<h3> Wed Nov 11 12:37:19 2009 NOT ok</h3>
<pre><img src="https://xymon.leidenuniv.nl/hobbit/gifs/yellow.gif" alt="yellow" height="16" width="16" border="0"> System clock is 98 seconds off (max 30)<br><br>local: Wed Nov 11 12:37:19 2009<br>UTC: Wed Nov 11 11:37:19 2009<br>
<br></pre><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2009/11/11 Buchan Milne <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bgmilne@staff.telkomsa.net" target="_blank">bgmilne@staff.telkomsa.net</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>On Wednesday, 11 November 2009 12:00:19 Peter Welter wrote:<br>
> Today, I discovered the following for the ntp-test on our Xymon server:<br>
><br>
> Service ntp on xymon is OK (up)<br>
><br>
><br>
> Command: ntpdate -u -q -p 2 132.229.84.242 2>&1<br>
><br>
> !!!!!!!!!!!!!! WARNING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!<br>
><br>
> The ntpdate program is deprecated and should not be used any more. To<br>
><br>
> quote the upstream ntp developers:<br>
><br>
> "The functionality ntpdate offered is now provided by the ntpd daemon<br>
> itself. If you call ntpd with the command line option -q it will<br>
> retrieve the current time and set it accordingly."<br>
><br>
> Please check the Network Time Protocol (NTP) daemon man page and<br>
> <a href="http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Dev/DeprecatingNtpdate" target="_blank">http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Dev/DeprecatingNtpdate</a><br>
> for further information.<br>
><br>
> You can replace the ntpdate call with "rcntp ntptimeset" to achieve an<br>
> inital poll of the servers specified in /etc/ntp.conf.<br>
><br>
> The program /usr/sbin/sntp offers comparable functionality to ntpdate.<br>
<br>
</div>Except the option flags are totally different.<br>
<div><br>
><br>
> Specifically<br>
> sntp -P no -r <a href="http://pool.ntp.org" target="_blank">pool.ntp.org</a><br>
> is equivalent to<br>
> ntpdate <a href="http://pool.ntp.org" target="_blank">pool.ntp.org</a><br>
><br>
> For further details please refer to the man page of sntp.<br>
><br>
> sntp: unable to write PID to /etc/sntp.pid<br>
> sntp: Permission denied<br>
><br>
><br>
> <a href="http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Dev/DeprecatingNtpdate#Set_the_time_before_" target="_blank">http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Dev/DeprecatingNtpdate#Set_the_time_before_</a><br>
>running_ntpd<br>
><br>
><br>
> I always thought I needed to run this ntp-test to make sure the time is<br>
> correct on the central monitor server, to make sure that the time on other<br>
> monitored hosts is checked correctly.<br>
><br>
> Should I<br>
><br>
> - change the NTPDATE="ntpdate"-location in /etc/hobbit/hobbitserver.cfg to<br>
> NTPDATE="sntp -u" to make it work again?<br>
<br>
</div>This on it's own won't be enough, as additional options are added to the<br>
NTPDATE path:<br>
<br>
$ grep -n -A7 NTPDATE ./bbnet/bbtest-net.c<br>
991: p = xgetenv("NTPDATE");<br>
992- strcpy(cmdpath, (p ? p : "ntpdate"));<br>
993- for (t=service->items; (t); t = t->next) {<br>
994- if (!t->host->dnserror) {<br>
995- sprintf(cmd, "%s -u -q -p 2 %s 2>&1", cmdpath,<br>
ip_to_test(t->host));<br>
996- t->open = (run_command(cmd, "no server suitable for<br>
synchronization", t->banner, 1, extcmdtimeout) == 0);<br>
997- }<br>
998- }<br>
<br>
These options aren't supported by sntp. You could hack this by modifying the<br>
options, but the long-term fix (for people who don't have sntp yet) would have<br>
to be different.<br>
<div><br>
> - disable the ntp-test since because it is useless for checking the correct<br>
> time on monitored hosts.<br>
<br>
</div>NTP is not that useful for monitoring the time on monitored hosts, (the<br>
client's built-in check is better, see the CLOCK option for hobbit-clients.cfg<br>
thresholds), unless you are running all your hosts as ntp servers. It is<br>
however useful for checking whether the host believes it should be able to<br>
provide time services to other hosts.<br>
<br>
I only run this network test against NTP servers that other hosts use as time<br>
sources.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
<font color="#888888">Buchan<br>
</font></blockquote></div><br>