linux ntpd not working correctly

Seems like you have installed it on VMware, If this is the case then please disable host sync from vmware for this VM then NTP will work perfectly.

TY/SA

This is not a virtual machine. Other ideas?

Actually, I think I need to properly configure my ntp.conf file. I find the documentation on this wonderfully confusing. I want to set up to synchronize with server pool.ntp.org, and permit only hosts on 192.168.0.0/24 to synchronize with this host. What should I set in ntp.conf?

I believe I can accomplish the 1st goal by uncommenting the "#server pool.ntp.org iburst" line in ntp.conf. As to permitting hosts, the following is currently set in ntp.conf:

# Don't serve time or stats to anyone else by default (more secure)
restrict default noquery nomodify

# Trust ourselves.  :-)
restrict 127.0.0.1

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I've read about default noquery and nomodify options. The documentation appears to be written in English,  but I confess I'm mystified as to its meaning. How do I permit only hosts on 192.168.0.0/24 to synchronize with this host?

you need to enter server x.x.x.x parameter to sync with and i would suggest to use iburst iburst with it..

Apart from this there is not much check with

#ntpq -np

TY/SA

I've got:

server pool.ntp.org iburst
server  127.127.1.0     # local clock

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and that appears to be working. I set my time off by +10 minutes last night and now it is back to the correct time.  ntpq -p gives me:

$ ntpq -p
     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter
==============================================================================
 LOCAL(0)        .LOCL.          10 l   6h   64    0    0.000    0.000   0.000
*repos.lax-noc.c 216.218.254.202  2 u  695 1024  377   69.032    0.777   2.003

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but my question was not about syncing with the ntp server, I want to know what directive I need to let other hosts on the 192.168.0.0/24 LAN sync with *this* host. I believe I need a "restrict" directive, but can't figure out what that should be. Currently the restrict directives are set to the as-shipped defaults:

restrict default noquery nomodify
# Trust ourselves.  :-)
restrict 127.0.0.1

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What do I need to let LAN member hosts sync with this host?

This is fine.. You can start using this as a NTP server for your LAN client ? configure and see...

TY/SA

OK - will set up a client and post back results.

Well, sorry to be a bad penny - but this just isn't working and I can't figure out why. All of the above worked just fine until I rebooted. Now, I'm back to having my system time 4 hours ahead of the real time and the ntpd daemon did not start (or at least I can say it is not currently running). I really need to know how to fix this. I don't get why this simple facility is such a problem. I have it running fine on Ubuntu and Debian, but Slackware is giving me fits! Help!

Hi Mark,

What happened to your Q where /include/sys was not saved to backup and it transpired you had dumped a 64-bit SW install over a 32-bit system? I can no longer find it, but never got a mail that it was to be deleted.

As to this Q, it sounds to me like your hardware clock is local time but Linux is configured to expect it to be UTC, or vice versa.
ntp generally exits when the time difference is more than the panic threshold (default 1000s; documented at  file:///usr/doc/ntp-4.2.6p5/html/miscopt.html#tinker ). When invoked with the -g option, a huge gap is allowed once; see -g, --panicgate in man ntpd. Perhaps some process is doing hwclock --hctosys after ntpd has started. That would kill ntpd but it should have logged something in /var/log/ntp.log

If you correct the setting of your hardware (BIOS) clock, all should be well.

I was saying the same. :D

Ty/SA

Duncan Roe: > What happened to your Q where /include/sys was not saved to backup and it transpired you had dumped a 64-bit SW install over a 32-bit system?

That question was/is: https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/28493144/problems-installing-openchange.html, and perhaps you did find it after all because yours is the most recent response.

Duncan Roe, Sandy: I don't think the hardware clock as a timezone component and my local timezone is set to EDT. I will reboot and check the hardware clock setting this afternoon and report back.

Check the contents of /etc/adjtime. If the last line of that file is UTC, that is your problem: the kernel expects a UTC BIOS clock but yours is EDT

Duncan Roe: The last line of /etc/adjtime is "LOCAL".

Not sure what the problem is here. I set the hardware clock to the correct time and verified it a couple of days later by looking at the actual BIOS settings. After running for several weeks I rebooted a couple of times. I didn't notice a problem with the first couple of reboots, but when I just rebooted again my system time was set to +4 hours from the correct time and the hardware clock was set to +4 hours from that. I reset the hardware clock again and reset the system clock from the hardware clock (hwclock -s) and rebooted. Time is OK.

I don't know if I have a flakey hardware clock or what. I've used ntpd on other Debian systems w/o problem. This is my only Slackware running ntpd. OS? Hardware?

I'll scratch my head on this for a couple of days and if nothing interesting, I'll close it and eventually try on different hardware and see if I have the same problem.

similarly i was stating in comment #I40218571

I've come to the conclusion that it must be my hardware. This seems to happen after a power outage which probably means the CMOS battery is not keeping the clock up to date -- however, it doesn't lose other settings. I'll close this out and will eventually change hardware.