ntp is very easy to configure but impossible to make work if you cannot contact the ntp servers. Before you do anything, make sure xntp is not running:
UNIX95=1 ps -fC xntdp
That should return nothing which is correct. Otherwise, kill the xntpd process. Now test that your server can see the NTP server:
ntpq -p 10.2.2.28
You will see something like this:
# ntpqp -p 10.2.2.28
remote refid st t when poll reach delay offset disp
==============================================================================
192.147.38.60 0.0.0.0 16 - - 1024 0 0.00 0.000 16000.0
*ntp.pbx.org clock.nyc.he.ne 2 u 755 1024 377 13.18 18.193 9.28
+kyna.dalbaech.n time-A.timefreq 2 u 824 1024 377 59.59 -29.138 0.53
The first line indicates that server 10.2.2.28 cannot get any time info from 192.147.38.60. That is the remote server's problem, not yours. The next 2 lines show that the remote server can talk to these time servers. This is a normal display.
However, if you get errors from ntpq such as unreachable, can't assign address, timeout, etc, don't go any farther. Your server cannot talk NTP to 10.2.2.28. Until this is fixed, the rest of the steps will be ineffective.
Once you fix the communication problem, now you can configure ntp.conf. While there are dozens of options, leave all that out and make it as simple as possible:
# cat /etc/ntp.conf
10.2.2.28 # company serverserver
fudge 127.127.1.1 stratum 10 # localhost fallback
driftfile /etc/ntp.drift
And that's it. NOTE: 127.127.1.1 should always have stratum 10 listed. This address is a fallback for NTP to use itself for sync until the servers return. But it must be the last choice, hence stratum 10.
Bill Hassell, sysadmin
