RHEL 7.3 - Resolving the leap second issue

Latest response

I ran the leap second detector script as instructed (https://access.redhat.com/labs/leapsecond) to check if the system is affected :

$ ./leap_second_issue_detector.sh
[INFORMATION]
- Installed kernel version: 3.10.0-514.el7.x86_64
After the leap second, this system will have a time which is different from the true/official time.
If that is not desired, consult <https://access.redhat.com/articles/15145> for details on configuring the system.

Then I added the following lines to the /etc/chrony.conf file (https://access.redhat.com/articles/15145) to step the leap second :

# Step leap second
leapsecmode step

After rebooting the system I ran the script again, but nothing has changed, it still gives me the same information as shown above.

Did I miss something or did I misunderstand the instructions somehow ? What has to be done to solve the leap second problem ?

Responses

I found out that the chrony daemon was not running, after enabling the expected output is shown :

$ sudo setenforce 0
$ sudo systemctl enable chronyd
$ sudo setenforce 1

$ ./leap_second_issue_detector.sh
[INFORMATION]
- Installed kernel version: 3.10.0-514.el7.x86_64
- The system is running chronyd: chrony-2.1.1-3.el7.x86_64
The clock will be stepped by chrony daemon.

Strange to me is the fact that all this is only valid for an installation of RHEL 7.3 in a virtual machine.

On a bare metal install, chronyd was running and I did not have to edit the etc/chrony.conf file.

Credits to Mark Yisri, who pointed me to checking whether chronyd is running. Thank you, Mark ! :)

Christian,

I agree it's strange the chrony was running on the bare metal installation of RHEL 7.3, but not on the installation on the virtual machine. If I understand correctly, chrony should have been running in both instances.

Was the same installation method used for both?

Hi Russell,

Thanks for your response ! :) Yes both installations were performed in the same way. The only difference is that the bare metal installation is on a machine with legacy (MBR) based BIOS and the virtual machine is setup with OVMF as an EFI based system on a host which has an EFI based BIOS as well. But that shouldn't matter, right ?

Christian,

I can't explain why you had to manually start chronyd on the virtual server, but not on the bare metal one. If this happens again, I suggest raising a support ticket with Red Hat Support.

When you next build a server, first check the state of the chronyd service before rebooting. To check the state, run the following command:

systemctl status chronyd

The output should be similar to the following.

chronyd.service - NTP client/server
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/chronyd.service; enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Wed 2013-06-12 22:23:16 CEST; 11h ago

The output states that the chronyd daemon is enabled, which means it will start when the host is booted. It also states that the daemon is Active, which means that it is running now.

Hi Russell,

Thanks for the information ! :) Yes, running systemctl status chronyd was what I did to find out whether the daemon is active or not. Next time when I set up a new version of RHEL Server I will do this first ... Thanks again for pointing it out ! :)

Christian,

Thanks for your reply. I included the previous information thinking that even if you already knew it, it might be of help to others who have a similar issue and find this discussion.

I checked an existing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3 installation and confirmed that chronyd was set to automatically start on boot, and already enabled. The instructions provided by the article should be relevant for all instances of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3, both physical and virtual.

I hope you don't encounter the same problem on your next Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation but if you do, please do report it. I have added a comment [1] to the "Resolve Leap Second Issue" article, asking that the instructions specify that chronyd be enabled and started.

[1] https://access.redhat.com/system/ajax#comment-1128381

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