HP-UX Internet Services Administrator's Guide (August 2003)

Configuring NTP
Getting Started with NTP
Chapter 472
xntpd reads the NTP configuration file, /etc/ntp.conf, during startup
to determine the synchronization sources and operating modes. You can
also specify the configuration options on the command line when you
start xntpd. While xntpd is running, you can also display xntpd
variables and modify configuration options using the ntpq and xntpdc
utilities. For more information, type man 1M xntpd, man 1M ntpq or man
1M xntpdc at the HP-UX prompt.
The NTP Configuration File
The NTP configuration file, /etc/ntp.conf, contains the initial values
for synchronization sources, modes and other related information. The
xntpd daemon reads the /etc/ntp.conf file during startup to determine
the initial configuration values for the time server. The configuration file
format is similar to a UNIX configuration file. You can insert comments
with a pound symbol (#) in the beginning of the line. A configuration
command consists of an initial keyword followed by a list of arguments.
Arguments can be host names, host addresses, integers, floating point
numbers and text strings.
The configuration commands for a peer, server and broadcast are as
follows:
peer address [ key key_id ] [version version _id ] [ prefer ]
server address [ key key_id ] [ version version_id ] [ prefer
] [ mode mode ]
broadcast address [ key key_id ] [ version version_id][ttl
ttl ]
You can use these commands to specify either the name or address of the
time server, and the mode in which the time server must operate. For
more information, type man 1M xntpd at the HP-UX prompt.
Configuring Your Primary NTP Server
The following steps describe how to configure the primary NTP server:
1. Install the latest version of NTP on the system.
2. Select a source of time: radio receivers, public time server or local
NTP system.
3. Add the server name to the file /etc/ntp.conf using the following
command: