The platform is up, but one dependency path is not.

Use this when Linux hosts report synchronized time and authentication still fails because hierarchy and source trust are wrong. These issues are easy to misread because the operating system still responds while one control path, runtime dependency, or trust assumption is already out of alignment.

The symptom usually appears downstream from the real change.

• Linux assumptions are often changed indirectly by updates, policy, hardware changes, or cleanup work that looked harmless at the time.
• Chrony assumptions are often changed indirectly by updates, policy, hardware changes, or cleanup work that looked harmless at the time.
• Kerberos assumptions are often changed indirectly by updates, policy, hardware changes, or cleanup work that looked harmless at the time.
• Time Sync assumptions are often changed indirectly by updates, policy, hardware changes, or cleanup work that looked harmless at the time.