rdate.cpanel.net

[bs01]

Using rdate -s rdate.cpanel.net results in the server time bein set approximately 2 minutes out. If I run the command using a different time server the time is set correctly. So either rdate.cpanel.net is sending the wrong time or the server is taking off two minutes (which I can't imagine).

Is it possible to change the time server that whm uses to update the clock, and if so where? I have looked everywhere I could think of and can only find the entry in the update script, but this gets overwritten if changed and every night the clock resets itself and is two minutes slow. I would also want to change the time server used when updating server time manually in whm.

Any help would be most appreciated.

[deieno]

For me the diference is 9 minutes...
anyone knows how to fix?

[RyanHost]

I'm also getting time issues, my server is 2 minutes out each day.

[bs01]

Seems to be a general problem then. I'll open a support ticket. It would be OK if I knew where to change the time server, though this doesn't really solve the problem permanently.

[Rooter]

Seems to be a general problem then. I'll open a support ticket. It would be OK if I knew where to change the time server, though this doesn't really solve the problem permanently.

The only place I know of that explicitly defines the cPanel time server is in rc.local as seen here:
# grep -i rdate /etc/rc.d/rc.local
rdate -s rdate.cpanel.net&

I would setup ntpd to maintain correct time. If you need any hints on how to go about doing this feel free to ask me via IM.

[rkm11]

There must be a space/time anomaly hovering over the cPanel time server :P

[cPanelDavidG]

A system administrator has informed me that the issues with rdate.cpanel.net should be resolved now.

[methamp]

Not fixed here. I have 3 or 4 servers out of time sync and no matter what server I feed rdate, they're all timing out, even time.nist.gov! What's going on here?

[4u123]

I'd like to add to this thread.

We monitor our servers using a check in system. Each server checks in with the monitoring system every minute. If a server hasnt checked in for 3 minutes, we get a warning.

The problem is that randomly every day at least one of our servers is set by rdate three minutes slow. As a result this is triggering the alarm as the monitoring software thinks the server hasnt checked in.

I've tested this manually by running the rdate command on multiple servers at once - when I did this, four out of thirty servers were set three minutes slow. Yesterday after the automated updates, two servers were three minutes slow and today just one. I update them again by running the rdate command manually and it invariably sets them to the correct time.

My servers are not losing time on their own. Servers that were previously correct are becoming three minutes slow as a direct result of the rdate schedule.

I can only presume that cpanel have multiple time servers on a round robin and one of them is three minutes out. Seems pointless synchronsing the time if it is being set wrong.

Would be great if anyone at cpanel who reads this thread could check on this. If it hasnt resolved itself within a week I will raise a support request.

[4u123]

Ok, after testing this for several weeks I've found the cpanel date servers to be VERY unreliable. Every day we get different servers with the time anything from 3 to 6 minutes out.

This might not be a problem for most people but we have strict monitoring in place and if a server doesnt check in within 3 minutes it is considered unavailable.

Frankly, if we allowed the system clocks to keep time instead of using cpanels servers it would be more accurate.

As I understand it, /etc/rc.d/rc.local only sets the time/date on server reboot - is this right?

Can anyone tell me how to change the time server from cpanels to a different one? I cant see a cron job anywhere, but this is happening once a day. It is becoming a real pain in the ass to keep changing them manually.

Any help appreciated.

[eagle]

just run ntpd?

[4u123]

just run ntpd?

If I were to do that, how could I stop cpanel's schedule from overriding it without knowing how cpanel updates the time?

Besides, there is nothing wrong with the way cpanel has implemented this on the hosting server - its just that their time servers are not accurate, or synchronized - rendering the service pretty useless really.

[jack10k]

one of our servers is 33min faster. any fix for this yet?