My system steps 0.6 seconds several times a day. How comes?
ntpd has problems controlling the system clock. Most likely the frequency of your timer interrupts is either too fast or too slow. Another possibility is a broken interface between ntpd and the operating system. In any case the problem is serious. If you suspect the first problem, you should adjust the value of tick to compensate the error (See Q: 8.2.5.1.).[2] If you are using the kernel discipline (see Q: 5.1.6.1.) and you are suspecting the second problem, try to use adjtime() instead. Usually xntpd can compensate small and even not-so-small errors, but in this case the clock is too bad to be adjusted by the NTP algorithm. Any clock error of more than one minute per day is definitely too large to be corrected by NTP.
