cilium/cilium · error

invalid clocksource: %s

Error message

invalid clocksource: %s

What it means

GetCTCurTime maps a clocksource mode (ktime, jiffies, etc.) to the right kernel-clock read (e.g. probes.Jiffies for jiffies mode). If clockSource.Mode is not one of the known modes, the switch falls through to default and returns this error rather than producing a wrong timestamp. It indicates an unsupported or misspelled clocksource mode value.

Source

Thrown at pkg/maps/timestamp/timestamp.go:94

// Returns current time in units that are used for timestamps in CT and NAT
// maps (seconds for ClockSourceModeKtime and scaled jiffies for
// ClockSourceModeJiffies).
func GetCTCurTime(clockSource *models.ClockSource) (uint64, error) {
	switch clockSource.Mode {
	case models.ClockSourceModeKtime:
		t, err := bpf.GetMtime()
		if err != nil {
			return 0, err
		}
		return t / 1000000000, nil
	case models.ClockSourceModeJiffies:
		j, err := probes.Jiffies()
		if err != nil {
			return 0, err
		}
		return j >> bpfMonoScaler, nil
	default:
		return 0, fmt.Errorf("invalid clocksource: %s", clockSource.Mode)
	}
}

type TimestampConverter func(timestamp uint64) uint64

// Returns a function that converts a CT timestamp from clocksource units into
// seconds.
func NewCTTimeToSecConverter(clockSource *models.ClockSource) (TimestampConverter, error) {
	if clockSource == nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("clockSource is nil")
	}
	switch clockSource.Mode {
	case models.ClockSourceModeKtime:
		converter := func(timestamp uint64) uint64 {
			return timestamp
		}
		return converter, nil
	case models.ClockSourceModeJiffies:

View on GitHub (pinned to ac7b90affa)

Solutions

1. Use only supported modes: models.ClockSourceModeKtime or models.ClockSourceModeJiffies
2. Re-fetch the clocksource from the agent health endpoint or fix the agent config file to a valid mode
3. Align library and agent versions so both support the reported mode
4. Log the received Mode value to identify what unexpected value is being passed

// Validate mode before calling GetCTCurTime
if cs.Mode != models.ClockSourceModeKtime && cs.Mode != models.ClockSourceModeJiffies {
    return fmt.Errorf("unsupported clocksource mode: %s", cs.Mode)
}

func isSupportedMode(m models.ClockSourceMode) bool {
    return m == models.ClockSourceModeKtime || m == models.ClockSourceModeJiffies
}

// Go: handle and surface the invalid mode
sec, err := GetCTCurTime(clockSource)
if err != nil {
    if strings.HasPrefix(err.Error(), "invalid clocksource") {
        logger.Error("unsupported clocksource mode", "mode", clockSource.Mode)
    }
    return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling GetCTCurTime with a models.ClockSource whose Mode is an unrecognized string — e.g. a new mode added in a newer agent, a typo, or an empty Mode from a malformed health/config payload.

Common situations: Version skew where the agent reports a mode this library doesn't know; hand-edited config with an invalid mode; empty clocksource parsed from YAML producing Mode:"".

Related errors

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• BIG TCP in tunneling mode requires pending kernel support
• BIG TCP with bpf-lb-dsr-dispatch geneve requires pending ker

AI-assisted analysis of cilium/cilium@ac7b90affa (2026-08-31). Data as JSON: /api/errors/489fe3db06b6d23d. Report an issue: GitHub.