12/6/2016 Time Synchronisation with NTP

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Time Synchronisation with NTP Previous Next

NTP is a TCP/IP protocol for synchronising time over a network. Basically a client requests the current time from
a server, and uses it to set its own clock.

Behind this simple description, there is a lot of complexity - there are tiers of NTP servers, with the tier one NTP servers connected to atomic
clocks, and tier two and three servers spreading the load of actually handling requests across the Internet. Also the client software is a lot more
complex than you might think - it has to factor out communication delays, and adjust the time in a way that does not upset all the other
processes that run on the server. But luckily all that complexity is hidden from you!

Ubuntu uses ntpdate and ntpd.

timedatectl

timesyncd
ntpdate
timeservers
ntpd
Installation
Configuration
View status
PPS Support

References

timedatectl
In recent Ubuntu releases timedatectl replaces ntpdate. By default timedatectl syncs the time once on boot and later on uses socket activation to
recheck once network connections become active.

If ntpdate / ntp is installed timedatectl steps back to let you keep your old setup. That shall ensure that no two time syncing services are fighting
and also to retain any kind of old behaviour/config that you had through an upgrade. But it also implies that on an upgrade from a former
release ntp/ntpdate might still be installed and therefore renders the new systemd based services disabled.

timesyncd
In recent Ubuntu releases timesyncd replaces the client portion of ntpd. By default timesyncd regularly checks and keeps the time in sync. It also
stores time updates locally, so that after reboots monotonically advances if applicable.

The current status of time and time configuration via timedatectl and timesyncd can be checked with timedatectl status.

timedatectl status 
      Local time: Fri 2016­04­29 06:32:57 UTC 
  Universal time: Fri 2016­04­29 06:32:57 UTC 
        RTC time: Fri 2016­04­29 07:44:02 
       Time zone: Etc/UTC (UTC, +0000) 
 Network time on: yes 
NTP synchronized: no 
 RTC in local TZ: no 

If NTP is installed and replaces the activity of timedatectl the line "NTP synchronized" is set to yes.

The nameserver to fetch time for timedatectl and timesyncd from can be specified in /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf and with flexible additional
config files in /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf.d/.

ntpdate
ntpdate is considered deprecated in favour of timedatectl and thereby no more installed by default. If installed it will run once at boot time to set
up your time according to Ubuntu's NTP server. Later on anytime a new interface comes up it retries to update the time - while doing so it will try
to slowly drift time as long as the delta it has to cover isn't too big. That behaviour can be controlled with the -B/-b switches.

ntpdate ntp.ubuntu.com 

timeservers
https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/serverguide/NTP.html 1/2
12/6/2016 Time Synchronisation with NTP

By default the systemd based tools request time information at ntp.ubuntu.com. In classic ntpd based service uses the pool of [0-
3].ubuntu.pool.ntp.org Of the pool number 2.ubuntu.pool.ntp.org as well as ntp.ubuntu.com also support ipv6 if needed. If one needs to force
ipv6 there also is ipv6.ntp.ubuntu.com which is not configured by default.

ntpd
The ntp daemon ntpd 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.

Installation
To install ntpd, from a terminal prompt enter:

sudo apt install ntp 

Configuration
Edit /etc/ntp.conf to add/remove server lines. By default these servers are configured:

# Use servers from the NTP Pool Project. Approved by Ubuntu Technical Board 
# on 2011­02­08 (LP: #104525). See http://www.pool.ntp.org/join.html for 
# more information. 
server 0.ubuntu.pool.ntp.org 
server 1.ubuntu.pool.ntp.org 
server 2.ubuntu.pool.ntp.org 
server 3.ubuntu.pool.ntp.org 

After changing the config file you have to reload the ntpd:

sudo systemctl reload ntp.service 

View status
Use ntpq to see more info:

# sudo ntpq -p 

remote refid st t when poll reach delay offset jitter
==============================================================================
+stratum2-2.NTP. 129.70.130.70 2 u 5 64 377 68.461 -44.274 110.334
+ntp2.m-online.n 212.18.1.106 2 u 5 64 377 54.629 -27.318 78.882
*145.253.66.170 .DCFa. 1 u 10 64 377 83.607 -30.159 68.343
+stratum2-3.NTP. 129.70.130.70 2 u 5 64 357 68.795 -68.168 104.612
+europium.canoni 193.79.237.14 2 u 63 64 337 81.534 -67.968 92.792 

PPS Support
Since 16.04 ntp supports PPS discipline which can be used to augment ntp with local timesources for better accuracy. For more details on
configuration see the external pps ressource listed below.

References
1. See the Ubuntu Time wiki page for more information.

2. ntp.org, home of the Network Time Protocol project

3. ntp.org faq on configuring PPS

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