Cron for synching the system clock

[SkrU]

I need one and need to know if it is possible. It would appear that the server looses about 4-5 minutes a month. How is totally beyond me. I admit that I am using a kernel I compiled for higher frequencies (Counter Strike Source). I went though it to try to find something I might have goofed up in making it too no avail. recompiled 2 different kernels and the same thing.

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

[Kevin]

If you just run the ntpd service on your server the clock will keep itself in sync, though you should store its value to the bios periodically. For CentOS:

yum -y install ntp
chkconfig ntpd on
service ntpd start

Then add a daily or weekly cron that does:

/sbin/hwclock --systohc

If you want a more accurate local clock, you can update the /etc/ntp.conf file to specify different server lines. You can use time.steadfast.net as a local time source, and googling should help you find some other reliable NTP servers.

[SkrU]

Thanks Kevin. Works like a charm. At least it will whenever I check the time.

On a side note I'm using etch and was curious if that is the highest version available. I noticed some trivial things that aren't available on etch but are standard on version 5. Like I said, just curious because I'm running out of ram and my daughter's health insurance just went up.

[Kevin]

Etch is the latest released version, though there is an etch-n-half release which contains some progress toward lenny (the next version), including a newer kernel. This was done to allow some newer hardware support mainly.

The lenny release is expected sometime next year and will be Debian 5.0. It is currently considered the "testing" release. We don't officially support it yet. If you do not have a control panel on your box, you can upgrade to lenny by switching your sources.list to it and then doing a dist-upgrade. If you have a control panel, that's generally a bad idea as this may break many package interdependencies.

Here's some info about lenny:

http://www.debian.org/releases/testing/

[SkrU]

Thanks for the link Kevin. I will hold off since I do have a control panel to get rid of and I have to consider a new kernel to perform liposuction on.

Cheers,

G