Setting the Clock Using rdate

First, you'll need rdate installed. Note that rdate uses an older time protocol that is not supported by all NIST servers, but is supported by most.

Just add a cronjob that runs rdate once a day. You can modify this to run every hour as well.

Before you start, find out where rdate is located by running:

which rdate

It's typically installed in /usr/bin or /usr/sbin. Modify the cron job to reflect the correct path.

Here are all the steps.

  • Edit the root cronjob
crontab -e
  • Add the following line
0 6 * * *       /usr/sbin/rdate -s time-c.timefreq.bldrdoc.gov
  • Save and close
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linux/setting_the_clock_using_rdate.txt · Last modified: 2020/06/01 22:53 (external edit)