#1142963 ntpd-rs: Intermitent name resolution errors cause time drift

Package:
ntpd-rs
Source:
ntpd-rs
Description:
Rust-based NTP implementation with NTS support
Submitter:
Zen Fu
Date:
2026-07-28 20:11:03 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1142963#5
Date:
2026-07-28 19:43:14 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

We're using ntpd-rs in a fleet with 140 Debian Trixie machines, and
every now and then we get the following error in the logs:

    WARN ntpd::daemon::spawn::pool: error while resolving source address, retrying error=Custom { kind: Uncategorized, error: "failed to lookup address information: Temporary failure in name resolution" }

When that happens, we see timex.maxerror grow (via the
node_timex_maxerror_seconds Prometheus metric) and eventually reach a
max of 16s. Most times restarting the service fixes it but sometimes it
doesn't. The issue is intermitent and we couldn't pinpoint what actually
triggers it.

We're using the default config, except for small tweaks in logging (see
below).

We think that, if it's indeed an issue with name resolution, ntpd-rs
should recover automatically.

This is the issue on our side: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/work_items/42692

Thanks a lot!