Can I become happy with ntpdate alone?
ntpdate sets the system clock once and mostly in a brute way. As real clocks drift, you need periodic corrections. Basically can run ntpdate in a cron job hourly or daily, but your machine won’t be an NTP server then. In contrast, running xntpd will learn and remember the clock drift and it will correct it autonomously, even if there is no reachable server. Therefore large clock steps can be avoided while the machine is synchronized to some reference clock. In addition xntpd will maintain error estimates and statistics, and finally it can offer NTP service for other machines. Last, but no least, ntpdate cannot query a local reference clock.
ntpdate sets the system clock once and mostly in a brute way. As real clocks drift, you need periodic corrections. Basically can run ntpdate in a cron job hourly or daily, but your machine won’t be an NTP server then. In contrast, running xntpd will learn and remember the clock drift and it will correct it autonomously, even if there is no reachable server. Therefore large clock steps can be avoided while the machine is synchronized to some reference clock. In addition xntpd will maintain error estimates and statistics, and finally it can offer NTP service for other machines. Last, but no least, ntpdate cannot query a local reference clock.
