[sllug-members]: Ubuntu laptop loses ntp sync almost immediately

[Lonnie Olson]

On Mon, 2008-04-21 at 19:52 -0600, Matt Warnock wrote:
> I have a ubuntu 7.10 laptop that seems to sync okay whenever NTP is
> restarted.  Then with no apparent error message the clock starts
> running
> slowly, losing around 20-30 minutes a day.  /var/lib/ntp.drift is
> still
> set at 0.000, so something is obviously very wrong.  I don't
> understand
> what the sync status codes in the log fields mean, though.  The
> machine
> is suspended occasionally, and is regularly disconnected from the net
> for several hours at a time.  The following log shows ntp restarted
> after about 10 hours offline:

It's easier to see the status of ntp by using the "ntpq -p" command.  It
displays stats about the configured peers, and the status of each.

When you are offline, you may continue to lose time on your laptop.
There is a threshold where the time difference is too much and NTPd
won't update it.  I can't remember what that limit is right now.
Essentially you need to set the time manually, or by using ntpdate
first.  Then restart ntpd.  Then they can sync back up again.

--lonnie