Re: setting hardware clock from NIST

[brownh@hartford-hwp.com (Haines Brown)]

> From: David Z Maze <dmaze@debian.org>

> If you install ntp-simple it will start a daemon that will
> periodically poll the time servers and gently keep your clock in
> sync.  (If you're five seconds off, that time will be made up
> gradually, rather than abruptly shifting the clock.)  No need to set
> up a cron job.

Thank you very much, David. Knowing that installation of ntp-simple
automatically sets up the clock syncronization makes things very
simple. Also, the 6-sec error I noted will then disappear in time. 

> > In reading the doc, I see that ntpq, run without argument, is a way
> > to do a simple test of ntp functionality. However, that does not
> > seem to be part of the ntp-simple package, nor is it itself a
> > package. Have you used ntpq, and if so, how?
> 
> It's in the base ntp package, which is suggested by ntp-simple.  For
> looking at my own ntp daemon, 'ntpdc -s' will give you a short summary
> of what other time daemons you're talking to, and 'ntptrace' will show
> the synchronization chain from yourself to a stratum-1 time server.

I installed ntp (which I didn't realize I had failed to do). and ran
the following. Don't know if it means ntp-simple not running:

  # ntpdc -s
  ***Server reports data not found

  # ntptrace
  localhost: stratum 16, offset 0.000011, sync distance 0.31587
  0.0.0.0:  *Not Syncronized*

The first puzzles me, and sounds like there's no connection with the
server. The second sounds like the time is retrieved, but there has
not been sufficient time to achieve complete sync.

Haines