NTP Daemon

Keeping time.

The network time protocol (NTP) is used to provide and acquire the correct time for computers all over the Internet. The NTP daemon, ntpd, keeps the computer’s time synchronized with an NTP server’s time, and these NTP server are scattered all around the Internet. The NTP daemon can also be used to broadcast this time to other computer’s on the local network.

Create the file /etc/ntp.conf and put it in the following:

server 206.246.122.250

driftfile /etc/ntp.drift

broadcast 10.11.12.255

The server line tells ntpd from which server to obtain the correct time. A good list of servers can be found at NIST.

The driftfile line is used to specify a file to record information about how accurate (or inaccurate) the local clock is.

The broadcast line tells ntpd which address to use to broadcast the time to.

Starting

ntp

Start at Boot

Add this line to /etc/rc.conf:

ntpd_enable="YES"

Network Clients

For each FreeBSD NTP client on the subnet that this computer will be broadcasting too simply add this same line to their /etc/rc.conf files.

Also see: www.pool.ntp.org

And if you are not running ntpd you can use the ntpdate command to update your computer’s clock:

# ntpdate server