Public bug reported: We observe NTP time drift on two servers running hwe kernels in Xenial. A few weeks ago we wanted to switch from 4.4 to 4.10. When rebooting the servers to the 4.10 kernel we were seeing a big time offset within minutes after booting. Despite running ntpd, it would not keep up and the offset stayed and kept growing over t.
Rebooting back into the 4.4 at the time we immediatly noticed the time stayed normal. Over time I have tested about a dozen versions making me think something has been introduced in kernel 4.10 that makes the clock go out of sync. So what do we observe? After 1 min uptime: remote refid st t when poll reach delay offset jitter ============================================================================== *ntp4.bit.nl .PPS. 1 u 5 16 7 0.497 100.084 81.382 +ntp1.bit.nl 193.0.0.229 2 u 8 16 7 0.603 93.241 70.643 +ntp2.bit.nl 193.67.79.202 2 u 8 16 7 0.582 93.218 70.674 +ntp3.bit.nl 193.79.237.14 2 u 9 16 7 0.781 90.488 70.574 A couple of minutes later (and also hours/days, the offset just keeps growing over time) remote refid st t when poll reach delay offset jitter ============================================================================== *ntp4.bit.nl .PPS. 1 u 13 16 377 0.447 400.198 151.335 +ntp1.bit.nl 193.0.0.229 2 u 13 16 377 0.313 400.561 151.339 +ntp2.bit.nl 193.67.79.202 2 u 13 16 377 0.517 400.445 151.398 +ntp3.bit.nl 193.79.237.14 2 u 12 16 377 0.934 402.013 151.384 As mentioned I tested about a dozen of kernels and I thought I got it pinpointed to a specific release when the drifting got introduced, 4.10rc1. Below the test results of the kernels I have tested up till today: Tested: 4.4.0-112-generic: not affected Tested: 4.8.0-41-generic: not affected Tested: 4.8.0-58-generic : not affected Tested: 4.9.0 mainline: not affected Tested: 4.9.66 mainline: not affected Tested: 4.10-rc1 mainline: affected Tested: 4.10 mainline: affected Tested: 4.10.0-38-generic: affected Tested: 4.10.0-40-generic: affected Tested: 4.13.0-16-generic: affected Tested: 4.13.0-31-generic: affected Tested: 4.14.3 mainline: affected Tested: 4.15-rc1 mainline: affected When I was about to file this bugreport about an hour ago I noticed 4.15-rc9 was present and thought I gave it a go to make sure I really tested the latest version. And while running it over an hour now it stable. Mostl likely the following from the changelog is related the issue we are having: Len Brown (3): x86/tsc: Future-proof native_calibrate_tsc() x86/tsc: Fix erroneous TSC rate on Skylake Xeon x86/tsc: Print tsc_khz, when it differs from cpu_khz Both servers that are having issues on our side our equipped with the following cpu: Cpu Model (from /proc/cpuinfo) vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 85 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6136 CPU @ 3.00GHz Standard information as requested: 1: Description: Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS Release: 16.04 2: root@bit-host6:~# apt-cache policy linux-image-generic-hwe-16.04 linux-image-generic-hwe-16.04: Installed: 4.13.0.31.51 Candidate: 4.13.0.31.51 3: Stable time 4: A big time offset ** Affects: linux-hwe (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1744988 Title: time drifting on linux-hwe kernels To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-hwe/+bug/1744988/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs