12-03-2012
From my experience, unless you are running an NTP server to synchronize your own devices against that reference (your NTP server) then, you are better off running ntpdate in a crontab to keep your time in sync.
On the other hand, if you are managing a large organization, then you should run one or more NTP servers in your organization and they all the devices and hosts within your organization should sync to your internal servers as a matter of policy.
There are many reasons for this. First of all, your internal devices will be closes in time-sync if the network-distance to their NTP servers are relatively the same. Second, it is better "net etiquette" to have a handful of devices (ntpd processes) sync with external time services versus every device in the organization.
Also, when external NTP servers change, it is only necessary to update the main time servers in a organization. There are more reasons, but you get the idea.
On the other hand, if you are not a member of a large (or even medium or smallish) organization and are just syncing your computer; then ntpdate is all you should ever need. Just run it in your cron files.
The most important thing, of course, is to insure you system clocks on all devices are in time sync, so your log files and process times are also in sync.
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LEARN ABOUT OPENSOLARIS
ntptrace
ntptrace(1M) System Administration Commands ntptrace(1M)
NAME
ntptrace - trace a chain of NTP hosts back to their master time source
SYNOPSIS
/usr/sbin/ntptrace [-vdn] [-r retries] [-t timeout]
[server]
DESCRIPTION
ntptrace determines where a given Network Time Protocol (NTP) server gets its time from, and follows the chain of NTP servers back to
their master time source. If given no arguments, it starts with localhost.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
-d Turns on some debugging output.
-n Turns off the printing of host names; instead, host IP addresses are given. This may be necessary if a nameserver is down.
-r retries Sets the number of retransmission attempts for each host.
-t timeout Sets the retransmission timeout (in seconds); default = 2.
-v Prints verbose information about the NTP servers.
EXAMPLES
Example 1 Sample Output From the ntptrace Command
The following example shows the output from the ntptrace command:
% ntptrace
localhost: stratum 4, offset 0.0019529, synch distance 0.144135
server2.bozo.com: stratum 2, offset 0.0124263, synch distance 0.115784
usndh.edu: stratum 1, offset 0.0019298, synch distance 0.011993, refid 'WWVB'
On each line, the fields are (left to right):
o The server's host name
o The server's stratum
o The time offset between that server and the local host (as measured by ntptrace; this is why it is not always zero for local-
host)
o The host's synchronization distance
o The reference clock ID (only for stratum-1 servers)
All times are given in seconds. Synchronization distance is a measure of the goodness of the clock's time.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Availability |SUNWntpu |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
SEE ALSO
xntpd(1M), attributes(5)
BUGS
This program makes no attempt to improve accuracy by doing multiple samples.
SunOS 5.11 19 Mar 1998 ntptrace(1M)