How to confirm/deny ntp is working?

[David Brodbeck]

On Mon, August 2, 2010 1:23 pm, Ed Flecko wrote:
> 3.) How do you confirm that FreeeBSD is, in fact, keeping time?

Run ntpq, then type "peers" at the prompt.

You should see some peers listed.  If ntp's been running for a while, one
of them should have an asterisk next to it (this is the one with which the
system is currently synchronizing) and the "offset" column should show a
fairly small number, usually within +/- 100 ms.  For example, here's the
output from my machine:

     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset 
jitter
==============================================================================
+cheezum.mattnor 24.56.178.140    2 u  803 1024  377   79.195  -39.637  
7.575
*dione.cbane.org 66.220.9.122     2 u  844 1024  377   34.034  -41.063  
8.513
 LOCAL(0)        .LOCL.          10 l   45   64  377    0.000    0.000  
0.004