lima-vm/lima · info

timesync: not supported on this platform

Error message

timesync: not supported on this platform

What it means

The timesync package only implements SetSystemTime on platforms with the required clock-setting capability (e.g. Linux). On other platforms a sentinel error errNotSupported is returned, signaling the guestagent to skip time synchronization instead of failing.

Source

Thrown at pkg/guestagent/timesync/timesync_others.go:13

// SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Copyright The Lima Authors
// SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0

//go:build !linux

package timesync

import (
	"errors"
	"time"
)

var errNotSupported = errors.New("timesync: not supported on this platform")

func SetSystemTime(_ time.Time) error {
	return errNotSupported
}

View on GitHub (pinned to dd909d0973)

Solutions

1. Treat this as a no-op: callers should log and skip timesync on unsupported platforms.
2. Use build-tag-specific code paths so timesync is only invoked where supported.
3. If time sync is needed, implement a platform-specific SetSystemTime (e.g. via `date`/system APIs) in a new _GOOS file.

Example fix

// before: assuming success
caller.SetSystemTime(now)
// after: tolerate unsupported platforms
if err := timesync.SetSystemTime(now); err != nil && !errors.Is(err, timesync.ErrNotSupported) {
	logrus.WithError(err).Warn("failed to set system time")
}

// gate timesync calls on build tags
//go:build linux
// timesync only invoked in linux-built paths; use runtime.GOOS at runtime otherwise
if runtime.GOOS != "linux" {
	return // timesync unsupported
}

if err := timesync.SetSystemTime(t); err != nil {
	if errors.Is(err, errNotSupported) {
		log.Debug("timesync unsupported on this platform; skipping")
		return
	}
	log.WithError(err).Warn("failed to set system time")
}

When it happens

Trigger: SetSystemTime called on any build of pkg/guestagent/timesync/timesync_others.go (non-Linux GOOS) whenever the guestagent attempts a time sync.

Common situations: Running or developing the guestagent on macOS/BSD/Windows builds; CI compiling for multiple GOOS; a host clock drift handler invoking SetSystemTime on an unsupported guest OS.

Related errors

• unable to connect to guest agent via vsock port 2222
• failed to enable SSHD: %w
• failed to write password file for user %#q: %w
• failed to create .ssh directory for user %#q: %w
• failed to write authorized_keys file for user %#q: %w

AI-assisted analysis of lima-vm/lima@dd909d0973 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1eff03d0f376ce13. Report an issue: GitHub.