ntp support installation

[NoOp]

On 06/16/2007 05:14 PM, wenzhuo at zhmail.com wrote:
> Ubuntu automatically synchronize system clock to ntp.ubuntu.com when
> a network interface is being brought up. Don't bother install NTP 
> support if you don't want to keep a local time server. ntpdate 
> regularly is enough for desktops and laptops with network connection
>  and not so inaccurate hardware clocks.
> 
> If you choose to install NTP support, you'd better replace 
> /etc/ntp.conf with the package maintainer's version because the 
> initial version is empty.
> 
> To verify whether your local NTP support is working, just type 
> "ntpdate -q localhost" in gnome-terminal, and verify if the stratum
>  number is below 5 in the output. Initially, the stratum number is
> 16. After some time, it shall drop to 2 or 3.
> 
> You don't have to zero-out a partition using dd before re-installing,
>  if you don't have any ultra-secretive information in it or if you 
> don't want to make sure your partition is free of bad sectors. Just
>  choose to format the partition when re-installing.
> 
> Wenzhuo

Correct, however ntpdate ntp.ubuntu.com syncs to a single UK based
server (82.211.81.145) upon boot, and if it is down then there is a good
chance clock doesn't get updated. If you leave your system up for some
time the clock will not get updated again unless you've set a cron job
to update it.

https://help.ubuntu.com/6.10/ubuntu/serverguide/C/NTP.html
<quote>

ntpdate

Ubuntu comes with ntpdate as standard, and will run it once at boot time
to set up your time according to Ubuntu's NTP server. However, a
server's clock is likely to drift considerably between reboots, so it
makes sense to correct the time ocassionally. The easiest way to do this
is to get cron to run it every day. With your favourite editor, create a
file /etc/cron.daily/ntpdate containing:

[snip]

ntpd

ntpdate is a bit of a blunt instrument - it can only adjust the time
once a day, in one big correction. The ntp daemon ntpd is far more
subtle. It calculates the drift of your system clock and continuously
adjusts it, so there are no large corrections that could lead to
inconsistent logs for instance. The cost is a little processing power
and memory, but for a modern server this is negligible.
</quote>

As for ntp support: all you need to do is right-click on the date/time
applet, select 'Adjust Date & Time', then Configuration: "Keep
syncronized with internet servers", click on Install NTP support.
That will automatically download and intstall ntp. Then click on "Select
Servers". I recommend that you unclick ntp.ubuntu.com and instead add
pool.ntp.org servers if you have any in your region, see:

http://ntp.org/
 http://www.pool.ntp.org/