Using NTP to sync time

Keeping your system's date and time accurate is easy to do using NTP.

What is NTP?

The network time protocol (NTP) can be used to update the clock on a machine with a remote server. This is a good way to keep the machine's time accurate (by syncing with servers that are known to have accurate times), or to keep several machines' clocks in sync (to make it easier to match log entries for an event across multiple servers).

Contents

The article for each distribution covers the following basic topics, covering the installation of the NTP service, configuring it, and testing it:

• What is NTP?

• Installing the NTP server

• Quickstart

• The ntp.conf file

• Syncing multiple servers

• Choosing an NTP server

• Public NTP lists

• Testing with ntpdate

Distribution links

Links to the articles for each distribution follow.

To access the article that corresponds to the Linux distribution running on your slice, click the appropriate link below:

Ubuntu:  Using NTP to sync time on Ubuntu

Debian:  Using NTP to sync time on Debian

CentOS:  Using NTP to sync time on CentOS

Fedora:  Using NTP to sync time on Fedora

RHEL:  Using NTP to sync time on RHEL

Arch:  Using NTP to sync time on Arch

Gentoo:  Using NTP to sync time on Gentoo

Further reading

For more details on setting up an NTP server and what options are available visit the NTP documentation site. If you want to know more of the nitty-gritty about how NTP works, go to the main NTP web site and all will be revealed.

  • -- Jered
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