On Mon, Dec 29, 2025 at 07:06:42PM +0100, Otto Moerbeek wrote: > On Mon, Dec 29, 2025 at 05:32:04PM +0000, H. Hartzer wrote: > > > On Mon Dec 29, 2025 at 11:21 AM UTC, Dorian Buettner wrote: > > > On Mon, 29 Dec 2025 05:37:02 +0000 > > > "H. Hartzer" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > >> Dec 29 05:19:23 myhost ntpd[50297]: adjusting local clock by > > >> 519.109281s Dec 29 05:20:27 myhost ntpd[50297]: adjusting local clock > > >> by 518.792356s > > >> > > >> Right after it adjusts the local clock, I check, and it's still 518~ > > >> seconds behind. > > > > > > man ntpd - adjustment ("adjusting", progressive form iirc) is ongoing, > > > by speeding up or down your local clock until it matches ntp time > > > > I see, thank you! I noticed that it seemed to adjust it by maybe a half > > second per minute. > > > > I think the log message is very confusing. Maybe it should say: > > > > adjusting local clock by 0.49 seconds (518 seconds to go) > > > > -Henrich > > > > "Adjusting" is fine, it already signals that the action will take some > time. Otherwise the message would have said: "adjusted the clock", or > "setting the clock".
I think the confusion comes from the fact that, for users who are not aware of the way clock sync works, the wording of the log entry implies that the adjustment is an instant action, rather than an on-going process. It might have been better to have used 'drifting' from the beginning, but I doubt that changing it now is worthwhile. Changing it to 'foo seconds to go' would add another inaccuracy, because it's not guaranteed.
