[SOLVED] Time synchronization problem

[David Kremer]

This does not seem solved. I have an RT-AC88U running Merlin RT-AC88U_386.5_2 and my router often reboots (after power outage) with the wrong date of May 5, 2018. This prevents other services from running, like the OpenVPN server. I saw on other forums this is related to failure to connect to NTP. I have the standard NTP server pool.ntp.org in my settings, but apparently it only works half the time?

Is there a fix?

 

[eibgrad]

This does not seem solved. I have an RT-AC88U running Merlin RT-AC88U_386.5_2 and my router often reboots (after power outage) with the wrong date of May 5, 2018. This prevents other services from running, like the OpenVPN server. I saw on other forums this is related to failure to connect to NTP. I have the standard NTP server pool.ntp.org in my settings, but apparently it only works half the time?

Is there a fix?

The problem may not be the NTP service, but DNS, given you have a dependence on name resolution w/ the NTP service. Maybe your DNS service is unreliable.

One problem w/ pool.ntp.org is it only resolves to *one* public IP. Might be a good idea to use something like time.apple.com instead, or perhaps as a secondary, since it resolves (at least for me) to many IPs.

admin@lab-merlin1:/tmp/home/root# nslookup time.apple.com
Server:    1.1.1.1
Address 1: 1.1.1.1 ping-host

Name:      time.apple.com
Address 1: 17.253.14.251 usnyc3-ntp-004.aaplimg.com
Address 2: 17.253.14.123 usnyc3-ntp-003.aaplimg.com
Address 3: 17.253.14.125 usnyc3-ntp-001.aaplimg.com
Address 4: 17.253.20.253 usqas2-ntp-002.aaplimg.com
Address 5: 17.253.20.125 usqas2-ntp-001.aaplimg.com

IOW, give yourself more chances for success w/ name resolution. Heck, you could even hard code an public IP from that list as the secondary, removing the DNS dependency. I doubt these change all that much anyway, if at all.

 

[David Kremer]

One problem w/ pool.ntp.org is it only resolves to *one* public IP. Might be a good idea to use something like time.apple.com instead, or perhaps as a secondary, since it resolves (at least for me) to many IPs.

For me, pool.ntp.org resolves to many IPs. See below:

$ host pool.ntp.org
pool.ntp.org has address 216.229.0.50
pool.ntp.org has address 138.236.128.36
pool.ntp.org has address 167.248.49.102
pool.ntp.org has address 216.229.0.49

 

[eibgrad]

For me, pool.ntp.org resolves to many IPs. See below:

$ host pool.ntp.org
pool.ntp.org has address 216.229.0.50
pool.ntp.org has address 138.236.128.36
pool.ntp.org has address 167.248.49.102
pool.ntp.org has address 216.229.0.49

Hmm, when I tried, I only received a single IP. Then I tried again and got several. I changed DNS servers and got multiple, but completely different servers. Not very consistent here. Weird.