Tuning ntpd
Charly's Column – ntpd
© Photo by Fabrizio Forte on Unsplash
Charly Kühnast, sys admin columnist for 15 years, is searching for lost microseconds.
Time is the topic I'm focusing on right now. On the one hand, I am of course happy to be celebrating the 25th anniversary of Linux Magazine and the fact that I have been allowed to contribute this column for more than 15 years. On the other hand, I am currently working on configuring my time servers. In the last issue [1], I briefly touched on the topic when we looked at ntpviz, the statistics visualization tool for the Network Time Protocol daemon (ntpd).
How to tune the time server for maximum accuracy using quite simple means was the topic in the October 2017 issue [2]. (Is it really already two years ago? How time flies.) At the time, I picked up a high-precision pulse per second (PPS) signal from GPS satellites. This allowed me to line up ticks received locally or from remote time servers to achieve microsecond accuracy on my server. Apart from scientific applications, nobody really needs that, but it's cool, so it was done.
When I tackled this configuration back in 2017, it was still by a fairly circuitous route. Feeding the PPS signal to ntpd required additional software, which I found on GitHub. It's easier today. The two daemons involved, gpsd and ntpd, work hand in hand on my Debian 10 – and without any extra software.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Blender App Makes it to the Big Screen
The animated film "Flow" won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 97th Academy Awards held on March 2, 2025 and Blender was a part of it.
-
Linux Mint Retools the Cinnamon App Launcher
The developers of Linux Mint are working on an improved Cinnamon App Launcher with a better, more accessible UI.
-
New Linux Tool for Security Issues
Seal Security is launching a new solution to automate fixing Linux vulnerabilities.
-
Ubuntu 25.04 Coming Soon
Ubuntu 25.04 (Plucky Puffin) has been given an April release date with many notable updates.
-
Gnome Developers Consider Dropping RPM Support
In a move that might shock a lot of users, the Gnome development team has proposed the idea of going straight up Flatpak.
-
openSUSE Tumbleweed Ditches AppArmor for SELinux
If you're an openSUSE Tumbleweed user, you can expect a major change to the distribution.
-
Plasma 6.3 Now Available
Plasma desktop v6.3 has a couple of pretty nifty tricks up its sleeve.
-
LibreOffice 25.2 Has Arrived
If you've been hoping for a release that offers more UI customizations, you're in for a treat.
-
TuxCare Has a Big AlmaLinux 9 Announcement in Store
TuxCare announced it has successfully completed a Security Technical Implementation Guide for AlmaLinux OS 9.
-
First Release Candidate for Linux Kernel 6.14 Now Available
Linus Torvalds has officially released the first release candidate for kernel 6.14 and it includes over 500,000 lines of modified code, making for a small release.