[tor-relays] Time information

[Roger Dingledine]

On Tue, Sep 02, 2014 at 07:19:02PM +0000, Marcin Gondek wrote:
> Sep 02 21:11:52.000 [info] channel_tls_process_netinfo_cell(): Received NETINFO cell with skewed time from server at x.x.x.x:449.  It seems that our clock is ahead by 1 hours, 19 minutes, or that theirs is behind. Tor requires an accurate clock to work: please check your time and date settings.
> 
> Should I worry about it? Logs seems to little strange and looks that
>other servers provide it's local time without any timezone.

It isn't a bug, but it is not great that some Tor relays have the
wrong time. But so long as they aren't *too* wrong, it isn't the end of
the world. I just counted them up, and I think there are about 30 relays
with wrong clocks, out of the 6000 or so total. That's pretty good.

I think those relays are probably seeing complaints in their logs,
since while you see those at info-level because they're not directory
authorities, when you notice that a directory authority disagrees with
your clock, it's logged at warn-level severity.

I wonder how to get them to notice more consistently?

--Roger