Cofiguring NTP client behind the Server

[Osama Ahmed]

How can I force an NTP client to be behind the time of NTP server by 1 or 2 min not in total sync ?

[Ivan Ferreira]

This is a very weird question. I think that you won't be able to do that, the purpose of NTP is to keep the most accurate time possible.

Can you explain your situation to check if another solution available?

[Osama Ahmed]

Ivan,
There is a client/server application that require its time to be behind by 1 min at least. i.e: client cannot be ahead of the server even on the second level, if this happen the application will mis behave !

The current situation is that the client may become ahead of server on the seconds level. other solution is to make sure that both client and sever is totally insync even on the seconds level, how can I do this ?

[Ivan Ferreira]

Maybe, you can use the TZ variable for that application only. Here is one example, the TZ variable is set to be 1 minute behind UTC:

export TZ=UTC+00:01:00

Then, we check the UTC time and the local time as defined by the TZ variable:

date -u ; date
Tue Apr 17 13:59:06 UTC 2007
Tue Apr 17 13:58:06 UTC 2007


In the date -u command we get the UTC time, and with the date the local time.

You can use the TZ variable according to your time zone.