Managing System Time and NTP in Linux
Keeping your server’s time accurate is crucial — whether it’s for logging, cron jobs, or secure connections. Here’s a quick guide to checking and setting time on a Linux system, along with enabling NTP for automatic synchronization.
🔍 Check the Current Time
Check the hardware clock (BIOS/RTC):
hwclock
Check the system clock (software):
timedatectl
⏱ Enable NTP (Network Time Protocol)
To let your system automatically sync with time servers, enable NTP:
timedatectl set-ntp yes
🕒 Manually Set the Time
If you need to set the time manually (e.g., no NTP available):
timedatectl set-time HH:MM:SS
(Replace HH:MM:SS
with your desired time.)
⚙️ Start and Enable NTP Daemon
For continuous synchronization with NTP servers, start and enable the ntpd
service:
sudo systemctl start ntpd
sudo systemctl enable ntpd
🌍 Sync with a Specific NTP Server
You can manually sync your system clock to a specific NTP server and then update the hardware clock:
ntpdate -u clock.ncbs.res.in && hwclock -w
✅ That’s it! Now your Linux system should stay in sync with accurate time.