Superblock Last write time was in the future

Bug #107098 reported by Chazall1
2
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
e2fsprogs
New
Undecided
Unassigned
e2fsprogs (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

I have 2IDE HD's, 1 WinXP and Ubuntu Feisty
I have had an issue when the time change took effect in Edgy and now Feisty (2.6.20-15-27)
I get a Superblock Last Write was in the future on both / and /home.
running zdump, here's my output:

/etc/localtime Sun Mar 11 06:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 01:59:59 2007 EST isdst=0 gmtoff=-18000
/etc/localtime Sun Mar 11 07:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 03:00:00 2007 EDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-14400
/etc/localtime Sun Nov 4 05:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Nov 4 01:59:59 2007 EDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-14400
/etc/localtime Sun Nov 4 06:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Nov 4 01:00:00 2007 EST isdst=0 gmtoff=-18000

1) 'ntpdate' is installed by default in Ubuntu [Edgy] and there appears to be intent for it to run at boot; on the other hand 'ntpd' is not installed by default;
2) there are many reports of 'ntpdate' not running at boot-time though it appears it should; my own experience is the same, as was noted in a previous post:

- ntpdate, normally a "component" of ntp, is installed by default when Ubuntu is installed, and it has several files related to it in /etc/*. The code in one of those files, /etc/network/if-up.d/ntpdate, directs ntpdate to run when the network becomes available (presumably during boot); however, I could find no evidence by examining logs or tracing the code back through various files that ntpdate actually ever runs (it also is absent from the list of services when sysv-rc-conf is run from the command line). As a final step, just to be sure for purposes of this discussion, I set my clock incorrectly (- 10 minutes) and then rebooted. The clock was not corrected, so I can confirm that ntpdate is not run during boot.

NOTE: I was able to update the clock after login by issuing this command:
Code:
sudo ntpdate -u ntp.ubuntu.com

I chose the "-u" option and the server, ntp.ubuntu.com, because they are specified in /etc/default/ntpdate, and I wanted to be clear that these could be used successfully to update the clock.

** Local Time Tests

UTC Setting: UTC=No
Edgy Clock Preference Setting: UTC Time Not Selected (has no effect on system time, only affects display)
Time Zone: America/New_York

Time Synchronization In Edgy: None
- ntp(d) not installed
- ntpdate installed, but does not run (see post #90 for details)

Time Synchronization In Win XP 1 & 2: Off / Blocked
- Built-in sync is disabled / blocked at the firewall
- Time-sync nnchron jobs disabled during tests

(CT) Correct Time Prior To Conducting Tests: Edgy Display: 8:55 PM, 2007 03/17

Clock Reading After Reboot. Done To Establish Clock Times Relative To CT Before Proceeding
- BIOS: Matches CT Except For Elapsed Time ( 8:55 PM, 2007 03/17 )
- BootIT NG Boot Manager: Matches CT Except For Elapsed Time ( 8:55 PM, 2007 03/17 )
- Win XP 1: Matches CT Except For Elapsed Time ( 8:56 PM, 2007 03/17 )
- Win XP 2: Matches CT Except For Elapsed Time ( 8:58 PM, 2007 03/17 )
- Edgy: Matches CT Except For Elapsed Time ( 9:00 PM, 2007 03/17 )

--------

* Local Time Test 1: Introduce 1 Hour Clock Error ( -1 Hour )

(T1_CT) Correct Time: Edgy Display: 9:07 PM, 2007 03/17
(T1_CTE) Correct Time + Error: Edgy Display: 8:07 PM, 2007 03/17

Clock Reading After Reboot
- BIOS: Matches T1_CTE Except For Elapsed Time ( 20:08 = 8:08 PM, 2007 03/17 )
- BootIT NG Boot Manager: Matches T1_CTE Except For Elapsed Time ( 8:08 PM, 2007 03/17 )
- Win XP 1: Matches T1_CTE Except For Elapsed Time ( 8:08 PM, 2007 03/17 )
- Win XP 2: Matches T1_CTE Except For Elapsed Time ( 8:09 PM, 2007 03/17 )
- Edgy: Matches T1_CTE Except For Elapsed Time ( 8:11 PM, 2007 03/17 )

--------

* Local Time Test 2: Introduce Time Zone Change

Time Zone Changed From: America/New_York To America/Chicago
Equivalent UTC/GMT Offset for Time Zone:
- Standard time zone: UTC/GMT -6 hours
- Daylight saving time: +1 hour
- Current time zone offset: UTC/GMT -5 hours
- Time zone abbreviation: CDT - Central Daylight Time

(T2_CT) Correct Time: Edgy Display: 9:28 PM, 2007 03/17
(T2_CTZ) Correct Time + Zone Change: Edgy Display: 8:28 PM, 2007 03/17

Clock Reading After Reboot
- BIOS: Matches T2_CTZ Except For Elapsed Time ( 20:29, 2007 03/17 = 8:29 PM, 2007 03/17 )
- BootIT NG Boot Manager: Matches T2_CTZ Except For Elapsed Time ( 8:29 PM, 2007 03/17 )
- Win XP 1: Matches T2_CTZ Except For Elapsed Time ( 8:29 PM, 2007 03/17 )
- Win XP 2: Matches T2_CTZ Except For Elapsed Time ( 8:31 PM, 2007 03/17 )
- Edgy: Matches T2_CTZ Except For Elapsed Time ( 8:33 PM, 2007 03/17 )

--------

* Local Time Test 3: Change BIOS Clock Directly ( + 1 Hour )

(T3_CT) Correct Time: Edgy Display: 2:19 AM, 2007 03/18
(T3_CTBIOS) Correct Time: BIOS: 02:19 AM, 2007 03/18
(T3_CTEBIOS) Correct Time + Error: BIOS: 03:19 AM, 2007 03/18

Clock Reading After BIOS Clock Change
- BootIT NG Boot Manager: Matches T3_CTEBIOS Except For Elapsed Time ( 3:20 AM, 2007 03/18 )
- Win XP 1: Matches T3_CTEBIOS Except For Elapsed Time ( 3:20 AM, 2007 03/18 )
- Win XP 2: Matches T3_CTEBIOS Except For Elapsed Time ( 3:21 AM, 2007 03/18 )
- Edgy: Matches T3_CTEBIOS Except For Elapsed Time ( 3:23 AM, 2007 03/18 )

The same is Occuring in Feisty,

Revision history for this message
Julien Plissonneau Duquene (julien-plissonneau-duquene) wrote :

Marking as invalid (won't fix).

First, this is not a problem concerning e2fsprogs. Should have been filed in "ntp", "sysv-rc" or "util-linux". Please also file issues with your local politicians, because actually the best way to fix this would be to stop that twice-a-year-time-change insanity, seriously.

It is not possible to run ntpdate before fsck, because networking can only be enabled after fsck.

I am not redirecting the bug because there is no good way to fix your issue. If you were not running XP you would set your CMOS clock to UTC, problem solved. But if your CMOS is set to local time, including temporary political time shifts, there is no flag in CMOS telling the system that time correction has been applied (or telling in which time zone the CMOS clock is). Maybe hwclock could try to implement some clever, optional and not-enabled-by-default-unless-you-dual-boot-windows heuristics to guess whether the time should be considered summer or winter (and then there is one hour in the year where you just can't know), but it is not worth the extra complexity and problems in my opinion.

Changed in e2fsprogs (Ubuntu):
status: New → Invalid
Revision history for this message
rookie_noob (trueasiaticrick) wrote :

 apt-get install ntpdate
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
ntpdate is already the newest version.

yey!

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