WARN: systemd-timesyncd

pvps1

Renowned Member
May 24, 2016
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Pettenbach, Upper Austria
proserver1.at
When running pmg7to8 we see:

WARN: systemd-timesyncd is not the best choice for time-keeping on servers, due to only applying updates on boot.
It's recommended to use one of:
* chrony
* ntpsec
* openntpd

as this is mentioned in pve too, we checked it (all our servers running systemd-timesyncd) and imo the fact "due to only applying updates on boot" is not correct (despite that maybe chrony is a better choice anyway).

if I understand the manpage correctly (eg https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/systemd-timesyncd.service.8.html) systemd-timesyncd behaves exactly like the good ol' ntpd. big jumps only on boot, during runtime in small steps.

Am I wrong?
 
i don't really know how timesyncd behaves in detail, but we noticed that chrony did behave better in most situations, but mostly for pve (there the synced time is much more critical)

i'd say if you're happy with the timesyncd performance, leave it, but if you notice anything off, i'd switch to chrony, etc.

also note that if you install from a current iso, chrony is installed by default
 
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