Configuring NTP on a Linux client

To install ntpd, you can do it a couple different ways (such as downloading it from ntp.org and installing it manually) or you can use your favorite installer (I use apt-get):

sudo apt-get install ntp

Then you need to edit the /etc/ntp.conf file to point to the server you want to grab the time from. Since the installation started the process for me, I wanted to stop it before editing the conf file:

service ntp stop

Also, you might need to chmod the file first to allow writing to the file:

cd /etc
chmod 777 ntp.conf
vi ntp.conf

Add a line with your server to the config, I added mine above the defaults in they had listed:

server 10.2.1.4

Save your changes with :wq

Now undo the chmod command to put it back to rw-r-r:

sudo chmod 644 ntp.conf

Now start the ntp service back up:

service ntp start

That's all there was to it. Type "date" to see the current time and date on your box. It should be current after the service starts.

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