Is there a linux service that can synchronize system time with a NTP server with a given interval, such as 1 minute, 1 hour or 1 day ?
Is it a good practice to run utpdate in a cron tab? e.g.
*/10 * * * * /usr/sbin/ntpdate us.pool.ntp.org
UPDATE
In my server the ntpd service is started but it does not seem to work. Where can I see ntpd working status (log or message) ? I can find nothing according to this ( Where are the ntpd log file located, and how can we configure the ntpd log file path? ) and this ( Where can I look up for the ntpd log? ) 🙁
Best Answer
No. It is good practice to run
ntpd, because that is what it is for - to continuously keep your time as precisely sync'ed to correct time as possible, with the assistance of one or more reference servers (or, with acknowledgement to Michael, some other NTP daemon).ntpdate's job is to brutally wrench the system clock into something close to correctness, which helps the daemon to keep it there; but this is not a good thing to do under a running system, which is why it's generally only done at boot time.(Note that I have been quite precise in my choice of words, since you are making two mistakes about NTP: firstly, by not running the daemon, and secondly, in thinking that NTP exists to synch one server's clock to another, when it actually tries to divine the correct time, and sync to that).