how to auto-run ntdpdate command?

Question

I have a few dedicated servers and for some reason they are totally unable to mantain the time properly synchronized, every few days they start having differences of minutes in the clock. So I have to manually open Putty, connect, login, and run the ntpdate -u 0.ar.pool.ntp.org command on each of them.

Since there's no way I can do this every day because I'm quite busy, the question is exactly how can I create some kind of cron that auto-runs this command every day on each server. I have full root access to all servers, they have CentOs and DirectAdmin. Thanks.-

score 16 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 01 '13 at 13:02

No need to use cron for this task. Much better to install and configure ntpd (special daemon for continuous time sync).

sudo yum install ntp
sudo chkconfig ntpd on
sudo nano /etc/ntp.conf
you are from Argentina, right? comment/remove all the default CentOS ntp servers, you can add your own time-servers for Argentina, for example
```
server 0.ar.pool.ntp.org
server 1.south-america.pool.ntp.org
server 0.south-america.pool.ntp.org
```
After you are done with the configuration, just start the ntp service: sudo service ntpd start

To check if the NTP service is synchronizing:

sudo ntpq -pn
sudo tail -f /var/log/messages

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 01 '13 at 12:45

7

Instead of using ntpdate which resets time hardly at once, consider using NTP daemon (ntp packet). It slows down or fastens system clock to match NTP-server.

answered Apr 01 '13 at 12:45

gevial

1,434

how to auto-run ntdpdate command?

2 Answers2