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I have no experience in this field but I have the task to synchronize a number of Ubuntu 18.04 machines on a local network not connected to the internet. I tried using chrony following the instructions found in this answer, but when I tried systemctl enable chronyd I received this error

Failed to enable unit: Refusing to operate on linked unit file chronyd.service

I tried disabling it first, which showed

Removed /etc/systemd/system/chronyd.service.
Removed /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/chrony.service

but now I can't start it or enable it, showing this error instead

Failed to enable unit: Unit file chronyd.service does not exist.

while I can see the file being present in the /etc/systemd/system/ folder. I'm at loss here on what I should do. I tried uninstalling and installing chrony again without success.

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    After making changes to the underlying file structure you may want to start with systemctl daemon-reload (sudo systemctl daemon-reload if you're not logged in as root) to have systemd reload all unit files and recreate the entire dependency tree.
    – Bob
    May 19, 2021 at 12:35
  • Thank you @Bob. I tried as you said but it would still show chronyd.service as missing. I purged chrony and reinstalled it. After applying the changes to the configuration I used sudo systemctl daemon-reload before enabling it, but it still showed the error Refusing to operate on linked unit file chronyd.service as before
    – Otter_warrior
    May 19, 2021 at 13:45
  • Just a wild hunch: trying using 'chrony.service' (not 'chronyd.service') in your systemctl commands.
    – Brandon Xavier
    May 19, 2021 at 14:58
  • I restarted the machine and chrony seems to be working fine now, even if enable still doesn't work. Weird!
    – Otter_warrior
    May 20, 2021 at 13:08

1 Answer 1

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This is the correct answer to resolve the issue.
systemctl enable chrony

Just a wild hunch: trying using 'chrony.service' (not 'chronyd.service') in your systemctl commands. – Brandon Xavier May 19, 2021 at 14:58

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