NTP

NTP is an acronym for network time protocol.

NTP describes a protocol used by servers and clients to keep the time of all computers on the network synchronized. This is important, for example, to be able to accurately compare timestamps in logs on two different systems.

If you want to synchronize your local time with a ntp server target, stop your ntp daemon and issue:

$ ntpdate target
3 Jul 10:13:34 ntpdate[9484]: step time server 192.168.0.1 offset 33.206060 sec

The offset shows you the time difference between local clock and server before the sync.

The software

The software called xntpd (extended ntp daemon) can be configured

With SUSE Linux

Using

/etc/xntpd.conf

To start the daemon, issue

/etc/init.d/xntpd start

With Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Using

/etc/ntp.conf

To start the daemon, issue

/etc/init.d/ntpd start

See also

• date - show date and time
• ntpd - synchronization daemon
• ntpdate - synchronization command