Re: NTP Server

[Stan Hoeppner <stan@hardwarefreak.com>]

Dennis Wicks put forth on 10/27/2009 10:02 AM:
> Roman Gelfand wrote the following on 10/27/2009 09:44 AM:
>> I am running ntp server.  I suppose I need to tell ntp server the
>> authoritative time server to synchronize with.  How would I do that?
>>
>> Thanks again
>>
> 
> The info is in /etc/ntp.conf as well as some sample entries.
> 
> Go to http://www.pool.ntp.org/en/use.html for instructions
> on how to use a worldwide pool of stratum-2 timeservers to
> keep your system in sync with ROW.

The Lenny package sets this up automagically during aptitude
installation, including setting the list of stratum 2 servers:

/etc/ntp.conf

..
# pool.ntp.org maps to about 1000 low-stratum NTP servers.  Your server will
# pick a different set every time it starts up.  Please consider joining the
# pool: <http://www.pool.ntp.org/join.html>
server 0.debian.pool.ntp.org iburst dynamic
server 1.debian.pool.ntp.org iburst dynamic
server 2.debian.pool.ntp.org iburst dynamic
server 3.debian.pool.ntp.org iburst dynamic
..

First, something to consider, is that if ntpd is actually running,
ntpdate won't execute but will return an error, such as:

27 Oct 23:27:05 ntpdate[3775]: the NTP socket is in use, exiting

If you don't get the above error when running ntpdate, then your ntp
daemon is _NOT_ actually running.  This is likely why your clock is
drifting, because ntpd isn't running.  Make sense?  Check with top or ps
and make sure ntpd is actually running, and check your syslog et al for
errors, in case ntpd is running but not keeping time correctly.

Again, aptitude install ntp is fully automatic and shouldn't require any
manual configuration.  You may want to remove the package and reinstall it.

--
Stan