Systemd-users, just a NTP-tip (8 replies)

I've been running ntpdate & ntp for a long time.

The problem has always been that the ntp-service doesn't start at boot cos the sockets are in use (thanks to ntpdate).
And if you uninstall ntpdate, ntp will fail 'cos the gap from 1970 is to big... And the -g option won't work either...

You could always add a line to rc.local etc if you want but that's a bit messy for my taste. I rather have one solution that works out of the box.

With systemd (which i've only been using for 2 days) you can use "systemd-timesyncd" instead of both ntpdate and ntp(d).

Works great and sets the time at a early stage (no more 1970 in the logs).

Heres how you enable it, you will need to uninstall ntpdate and ntp(d).
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd-timesyncd

root@pp01:~# systemctl status systemd-timesyncd
● systemd-timesyncd.service - Network Time Synchronization
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/systemd-timesyncd.service; enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Wed 2015-04-01 01:47:48 CEST; 4min 11s ago
     Docs: man:systemd-timesyncd.service(8)
 Main PID: 178 (systemd-timesyn)
   Status: "Using Time Server 94.246.113.188:123 (0.debian.pool.ntp.org)."
   CGroup: /system.slice/systemd-timesyncd.service
           └─178 /lib/systemd/systemd-timesyncd

Jan 01 01:00:17 pp01 systemd-timesyncd[178]: System clock time unset or jumped backwards, restoring from recorded timestamp: Wed 2015-04-01 01:47:48 CEST
Apr 01 01:47:48 pp01 systemd[1]: Started Network Time Synchronization.
Apr 01 01:47:48 pp01 systemd-timesyncd[178]: Using NTP server 94.246.113.188:123 (0.debian.pool.ntp.org).
Apr 01 01:48:43 pp01 systemd-timesyncd[178]: interval/delta/delay/jitter/drift 32s/+54.774s/0.017s/0.000s/+0ppm
Apr 01 01:49:15 pp01 systemd-timesyncd[178]: interval/delta/delay/jitter/drift 64s/-0.004s/0.017s/0.002s/+0ppm
Apr 01 01:50:19 pp01 systemd-timesyncd[178]: interval/delta/delay/jitter/drift 128s/-0.007s/0.016s/0.006s/-26ppm
= KICKASS!!!

/John