/var/log/syslog 'systemd[1]: Time has been changed' message every 5 seconds
I have a problem. There are messages like
Mar 1 15:52:34 ubuntu systemd[1]: Time has been changed
Mar 1 15:52:34 ubuntu systemd[1]: snapd.refresh.timer: Adding 1h 16min 25.978183s random time.
Mar 1 15:52:34 ubuntu systemd[1]: apt-daily.timer: Adding 8h 21min 914.167ms random time.
Mar 1 15:52:34 ubuntu systemd[6041]: Time has been changed
every 5 seconds in /var/log/syslog. Looks like something is changing time constantly. It is really annoying and i understand that something wrong and would like to fix it. Also RTC time isn't correct.
Some info about my system:
- Ubuntu 16.04, 4.4.0-64-generic, x86_64, running on VDS
timedatectl:
Local time: Ср 2017-03-01 16:05:03 MSK
Universal time: Ср 2017-03-01 13:05:03 UTC
RTC time: Пт 2017-03-03 11:33:10
Time zone: Europe/Moscow (MSK, +0300)
Network time on: yes
NTP synchronized: yes
RTC in local TZ: no
iptables:
Chain INPUT (policy DROP)
Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
The INPUT chain has my rules inside.
systemctl list-units | grep running
acpid.path loaded active running ACPI Events Check
init.scope loaded active running System and Service Manager
acpid.service loaded active running ACPI event daemon
asterisk.service loaded active running Asterisk PBX
atd.service loaded active running Deferred execution scheduler
cron.service loaded active running Regular background program processing daemon
dbus.service loaded active running D-Bus System Message Bus
[email protected] loaded active running Getty on tty1
hv-kvp-daemon.service loaded active running Hyper-V KVP Protocol Daemon
hv-vss-daemon.service loaded active running Hyper-V VSS Protocol Daemon
iscsid.service loaded active running iSCSI initiator daemon (iscsid)
lvm2-lvmetad.service loaded active running LVM2 metadata daemon
lxcfs.service loaded active running FUSE filesystem for LXC
mdadm.service loaded active running LSB: MD monitoring daemon
mysql.service loaded active running MySQL Community Server
[email protected] loaded active running OpenVPN connection to server
rsyslog.service loaded active running System Logging Service
snapd.service loaded active running Snappy daemon
ssh.service loaded active running OpenBSD Secure Shell server
systemd-journald.service loaded active running Journal Service
systemd-timesyncd.service loaded active running Network Time Synchronization
systemd-udevd.service loaded active running udev Kernel Device Manager
[email protected] loaded active running User Manager for UID 1000
vpsguard.service loaded active running VPSGUARD
acpid.socket loaded active running ACPID Listen Socket
dbus.socket loaded active running D-Bus System Message Bus Socket
lvm2-lvmetad.socket loaded active running LVM2 metadata daemon socket
snapd.socket loaded active running Socket activation for snappy daemon
I have tried:
sudo systemctl stop systemd-timesyncd.service- installing/uninstalling NTP
sudo hwclock -w
I don't have sclockadj installed. Also I asked my VDS provider if they block any NTP requests. No, they don't.
Update 1
I set up another one VDS#2 completely the same. systemd[1]: Time has been changed was getting this message couple minutes, after that message CRON[3684]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly) showed up and the problem has gone. However I have tried to upgrade VDS#2 and right after reboot have this time has been changed again.
Found this thread, maybe it can give more information. Looks like it's a kernel issue.
Tried to downgrade kernel, systemd, udev, but nothing from this doesn't work. And as I can see from some replies, it's not a problem with my hoster and virtualization only.
Solution 1:
I encountered this issue of systemd[...]Time has been changed messages logged every five seconds in /var/log/syslog on a 16.04 server running under Windows 8.1 Hyper-V. To fix it, I disabled time synchronization on the Hyper-V side.
In Hyper-V Manager, I highlighted the VM, selected Settings, then Integration Services, unchecked Time synchronization, and clicked Apply.
The messages stopped instantly - no VM restart was required.
Solution 2:
On HyperV/Azure, the message can be disabled by creating a filter for syslog.
-
create a new file in /etc/rsyslog.d
vi /etc/rsyslog.d/15-excludetime.conf -
insert two lines
:msg, contains, "Time has been changed" ~ :msg, contains, "apt-daily.timer: Adding" ~ -
restart rsyslog
systemctl restart rsyslog.service
Or you can disable the host time sync on VMBUS. I put the line under /etc/rc.local
echo 2dd1ce17-079e-403c-b352-a1921ee207ee > /sys/bus/vmbus/drivers/hv_util/unbind