CompTIA Server+ SK0-005 Practice Question
A Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 file server that is joined to an Active Directory domain suddenly stops letting domain users mount its SMB share. The system journal records:
gss_accept_sec_context() failed: Unspecified GSS failure. Minor code may provide more information, Clock skew too great
Running timedatectl status shows:
Local time: Tue 2025-08-26 14:22:40 EDT
System clock synchronized: no
NTP service: inactive
ntpq -p reports the server at stratum 16 (UNSYNC). No hardware faults or network outages are present.
Which action is the BEST first step to restore domain authentication and keep the problem from occurring again?
Change the server's time zone to UTC so its displayed time matches the domain controllers.
Increase the "Maximum tolerance for computer clock synchronization" Kerberos policy on the domain from 5 minutes to 60 minutes.
Start and enable the system's NTP client (chronyd or systemd-timesyncd) and configure it to sync with the domain controller's time source.
Use the
datecommand to set the server's clock manually and disable all time-sync daemons so the time cannot change unexpectedly.