Hello,
I'd like to hear if anyone else experienced this and has an idea of what the cause might be.
I did not oped a ticket about this yet because I am not sure there is a problem in Tor, and it eventually healed by itself.
The relay was running just fine. Server had an accurate time before upgrade and time service ntp was running. I only did an upgrade to Tor from the latest nightly build and of course it does a service stop -> upgrade -> service start.
After Debian finished installing the new Tor, I did as usual: check the log file to see that all is OK and circuits were built and descriptors published, etc. I saw this:
The log before restart was reporting:
Sep 06 21:03:16.000 [notice] Interrupt: we have stopped accepting new connections, and will shut down in 30 seconds. Interrupt again to exit now. Sep 06 21:03:17.000 [notice] Delaying directory fetches: We are hibernating or shutting down. Sep 06 21:03:46.000 [notice] Clean shutdown finished. Exiting.
[skipped boring part intentionally]
Aug 28 07:40:07.000 [warn] Our clock is 9 days, 11 hours, 20 minutes behind the time published in the consensus network status document (2019-09-06 23:00:00 UTC). Tor needs an accurate clock to work correctly. Please check your time and date settings! Aug 28 07:40:07.000 [warn] Received ns flavor consensus with skewed time (CONSENSUS): It seems that our clock is behind by 9 days, 11 hours, 20 minutes, or that theirs is ahead. Tor requires an accurate clock to work: please check your time, timezone, and date settings. Aug 28 07:40:07.000 [warn] Problem bootstrapping. Stuck at 0% (starting): Starting. (Clock skew -818406 in ns flavor consensus from CONSENSUS; CLOCK_SKEW; count 2; recommendation warn; host ? at ?) Aug 28 07:40:08.000 [warn] Our clock is 9 days, 12 hours, 20 minutes behind the time published in the consensus network status document (2019-09-07 00:00:00 UTC). Tor needs an accurate clock to work correctly. Please check your time and date settings! Aug 28 07:40:08.000 [warn] Received microdesc flavor consensus with skewed time (CONSENSUS): It seems that our clock is behind by 9 days, 12 hours, 20 minutes, or that theirs is ahead. Tor requires an accurate clock to work: please check your time, timezone, and date settings. Aug 28 07:40:08.000 [warn] Problem bootstrapping. Stuck at 0% (starting): Starting. (Clock skew -822006 in microdesc flavor consensus from CONSENSUS; CLOCK_SKEW; count 3; recommendation warn; host ? at ?)
and then
Sep 06 21:04:50.000 [notice] Starting with guard context "default" ...proceed to normal start and everything as usual from now...
So, Tor had the time Sep 06 21:03:46.000 before restart.
After restart, it thought it had Aug 28 07:40:07.000 and then Aug 28 07:40:08.000 and then it healed and reported Sep 06 21:04:50.000.
This is kind of odd. What could be the reason for this? The server is just a Debian machine that runs Tor and nothing else.
Thanks!