ntp support installation

[Default User]

On Sat, 2007-06-16 at 17:46 -0700, NoOp wrote:
> 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/
> 
> 

Thanks to wenzhuo and NoOp for the information.  I will just reinstall
Ubuntu from scratch, and this time when I install NTP, I will select the
maintainer's version of the package.  Although Ubuntu apparently uses
Ntpdate by default, I want to auto sync the time it servers, as I am
sort of ()retentive when it comes to time.