Date --set makes zkifc babbling

Secure Edge Nodes
1

I found a issue in secure edge node d35, when perform ‘date --set hhhh-mm-dd’ in console to change the system time, zkifc service will start to print in syslog very quickly and will not stop:
Jul 1 15:44:28 zkifc[923]: Zymkey is babbling…
Jul 1 15:44:28 zkifc[923]: Zymkey is babbling…
Jul 1 15:44:28 zkifc[923]: Zymkey is babbling…
Jul 1 15:44:28 zkifc[923]: Zymkey is babbling…
Jul 1 15:44:28 zkifc[923]: Zymkey is babbling…

This can be reproduced no matter NTP service is active or not.
Since it produces a log of logs, the disk space can be exhausted quickly.

2

@billy - I can’t easily reproduce this in our standard image setup. I’m wondering if perhaps there is some type of permissions issue? Can you detail if you have changed anything, like added another user, deleted the zymbit user, etc.? Please confirm that this is bullseye64, and whether or not you are running our Bootware add-on.

Thank you,
Bob

3

Update: It will be more easily to reproduce when ntp is disabled.

I can reproduce it in a brand new d35 box, what I have done includes:

  1. Set timezone to Asia/Hong_kong(not sure if it does matter)
  2. disabled the ntp by sudo timedatectl set-ntp false.
  3. Then try set date for several times:
    sudo date --set "2024-07-10 00:00:00"

Then I got the error:

Jul  9 09:00:09 zymbit-dev zkifc[900]: Zymkey is babbling...
Jul  9 09:00:09 zymbit-dev zkifc[900]: Zymkey is babbling...
Jul  9 09:00:09 zymbit-dev zkifc[900]: Zymkey is babbling...
Jul  9 09:00:09 zymbit-dev zkifc[900]: Zymkey is babbling...
Jul  9 09:00:09 zymbit-dev zkifc[900]: Zymkey is babbling...
Jul  9 09:00:09 zymbit-dev zkifc[900]: Zymkey is babbling...
^C
zymbit@zymbit-dev:~ $ sudo less /var/log/syslog
zymbit@zymbit-dev:~ $ timedatectl status
               Local time: Wed 2024-07-10 00:01:23 HKT
           Universal time: Tue 2024-07-09 16:01:23 UTC
                 RTC time: n/a
                Time zone: Asia/Hong_Kong (HKT, +0800)
System clock synchronized: no
              NTP service: inactive
          RTC in local TZ: no
zymbit@zymbit-dev:~ $
4

Thank you @Billy. Leaving out NTP helps me debug. I can see the Babbling message now. I’ll get back to you shortly.

5

Still looking into this. I don’t think it will happen if you systemctl stop zkifc, set the date, then systemctl start zkifc. I will get you a better explanation on Monday. (We have a long weekend holiday).

6

@Bob_of_Zymbit Hi Bob, is there any update?

7

@Billy Nothing concrete. Can you stop zkifc, set your date and restart zkifc? Does that prevent the Babbling message, or do you continue to have problems?

8

It’s not a blocking issue to me, but would like to know if it can be fixed, please kindly keep me updated, thanks.

9

@Bob_of_Zymbit Hi Bob, this issue occurred in one device that we deployed in the field of our customer, since the large amount of logs consumed all the disk space, the device is not able to run our application properly. Not sure how did it happen as there should be nobody login to the device and change the system time, but it raised concerns about the stability of the device, our customer is not satisfied.
May I know is there any plan to fix this issue?