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10 * * * *    /usr/sbin/ntpdate pool.ntp.org >/dev/null 2>&1

The idea is to sync time every 10 minutes.

However im waiting now for 15 minutes and

nano /var/log/cron

still returns empty.

Is this cron running?, if yes where can i find prove?

3 Answers 3

6

You told it to run every hour at the 10th minute, not every 10 minutes.

Change '10' to '*/10' to get the behavior you are asking for. Or, you could expand it into '0,10,20,30,40,50'

That said, do not do this. Jumping your clock can cause all kinds of nastyness. Set up ntpd properly, which actually alters the lengths of seconds to bring your clock into line without the issues associated with just changing the clock.

6

What you really want is ntpd.

ntpdate gets the (approximate) current time from one one single server and then moves the clock to that time. It's a one-shot update that is primarily useful for getting your server clock "into the right ballpark" at boot time, so that ntpd has less work to do in fine-tuning the clock.

ntpd on the other hand, repeatedly polls the current time from a list of servers, taking into consideration factors such as network latency and jitter, and then builds a profile over time of each of the upstream servers to determine the correct time generally with a few milliseconds or better. Once it knows the correct time, it then slowly moves the system clock in that direction by adding or removing tiny fractions of a second for each clock tick, and finally stabilizes the local clock so that it won't drift anymore.

However, ntpd won't move the clock if the time is off by too far of a margin. That's why you may want to run ntpdate before ntpd starts up. Note that ntpdate won't function when ntpd is running, which may be the problem you're running in to. ntpdate should only be run at boot time before ntpd is started, and on some systems it's built-in to the ntpd startup script.

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  • You should use 'sntp' instead of ntpdate if you can. OpenSuSE actually yells at you now if you try to use ntpdate: "The ntpdate program is deprecated and should not be used any more. To quote the upstream ntp developers: "The functionality ntpdate offered is now provided by the ntpd daemon itself. If you call ntpd with the command line option -q it will retrieve the current time and set it accordingly." Please check the Network Time Protocol (NTP) daemon man page and support.ntp.org/bin/view/Dev/DeprecatingNtpdate for further information."
    – draeath
    Jun 13, 2011 at 19:20
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This is a broken way to set your time. Do it right and just set up ntpd.

Running ntpdate manually via cron like causes the clock to jump around and this could possibly cause issues for time-sensitive applications. By running ntpd, you avoid this as ntpd gradually slews the system time around to correct it.

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