Ubuntu
ntp package

  1. Bug #537451
  2. Comment #2

Comment 2 for bug 537451

Revision history for this message
Mathias Gug (mathiaz) wrote : Re: ntpdate-debian not syncing time

ntpdate-debian uses /etc/default/ntpdate for its configuration file. /etc/default/ntpdate should have a list of ntp servers in it:

# Set to "yes" to take the server list from /etc/ntp.conf, from package ntp,
# so you only have to keep it in one place.
NTPDATE_USE_NTP_CONF=yes

# List of NTP servers to use (Separate multiple servers with spaces.)
# Not used if NTPDATE_USE_NTP_CONF is yes.
NTPSERVERS="ntp.ubuntu.com"

I'm not sure what your problem is. ntpdate-debian is run only *once* when the network interface is brought up. If the system has been running from some time and the time drifted ntpdate-debian won't fix the time in a continuous manner: this is what ntp is for.

To summarize: ntpdate-debian corrects the time once, ntp corrects the time continuously.