FreeBSD date drifts significantly

[Jeff Hinrichs - DM&T]

On 11/21/06, Eric <heli at mikestammer.com> wrote:
> Neil Short wrote:
> > my FreeBSD date drifts out of sync with the system
> > date.
> >
> > When I set it, it is absolutely correct and matches
> > the system (CMOS) date. I then reboot and - shezam!
> > it's jumped 12 hours forward. Reboot again - another
> > 12 hour jump ... until the FreeBSD date is about 2 and
> > a half days beyond today's date - and the CMOS date.
> >
> > When I set up the system I said that the system clock
> > is NOT set to UTC - but just to be sure, I went back
> > into sysinstall and re-set the time zone the same way
> > (MST - Arizona).
> >
> > I suspect this has something to do with maybe the
> > server that is synchronizing my time; but I don't
> > recall how to synchronize my time with an up-stream
> > server. Can't find documentation on it either.
> >
> > Any pointers?
> >
>
> man ntpd
>
> has your answers. my /etc/ntp.conf looks like:
>
> server us.pool.ntp.org
> server 0.pool.ntp.org
> server 1.pool.ntp.org
> driftfile /var/db/ntp.drift
>
us.pool.ntp.org is just a meta pointer to one of the servers in the us
pool - so you could be pointing/asking 0.pool.ntp.org twice.  Usually
just us.pool.ntp.org is good enough.  Unless your obsessive like me
and list, 0,1,2 and 3.us.pool.ntp.org

++1 on http://www.pool.ntp.org/  -- great redundancy and you don't end
up hard coding time servers that may go away or drop their public
access.   If you don't have your own cesium clock it's a cheap
replacement <g>.