System time not syncing via internet

[Colin Law]

On 9 May 2013 01:20, C de-Avillez <hggdh2 at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 8 May 2013 22:00:26 +0100
> Colin Law <clanlaw at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> On a 12.04 system, in System Settings > Time & Date I have selected to
>> set time automatically from the internet.  When I reboot it syncs but
>> it then drifts a couple of seconds each day so whatever mechanism
>> there should be to keep it in sync is not working.  The machine is
>> permanently on so after a few weeks it gets noticably out.
>>
>> Any suggestions what might be going wrong?  I know I could add a cron
>> task to sort it but I would like to find out why it is not working.
>
> Yes. You probably have ntpdate installed, but not ntp itself. ntpdate
> syncs once when the interface goes up. If the interface never goes
> down... no more syncs.
>
> Just install ntp. I have had tried to get ntp installed by default, but
> did not get traction (and, BTW, ntpdate is deprecated...).
>
> Also, you may want to check if the default parameters for startup
> (in /etc/default/ntp) specify "-g". This will allow for an initial,
> potentially big, adjustment.

Thanks for that, you are right, ntp is not installed.  I am now trying
to work out why it is not installed even though I have selected
automatic update from internet, given the fact that it is a standard
install of 12.04.  I seem to remember that on earlier versions of
Ubuntu it automatically installed ntp when the option was selected,
but it does not appear to do that any more.  Is that a bug?  I cannot
find anything on launchpad.

Colin