HP-UX Internet Services Administrator's Guide (February 2007)

/usr/sbin/ntpdate server
The server is the name of a trusted server, such as a peer or high-level (lower stratum)
server. If the local xntpd is unable to form any association, this command returns the
message No suitable server for synchronization found. The possible
causes for this error message is discussed in the following sections.
Time Difference Greater than 1000 seconds
While evaluating incoming time updates, clients and peers reject time from servers or
peers if the time difference is greater than 1000 seconds. If xntpd is configured with
the broadcastclient entry in the /etc/ntp.conf file, xntpd dies if it cannot find
a suitable server after six consecutive polls, or five polling cycles (approximately 320
seconds if using the default polling interval). If xntpd is configured with server
entries in the /etc/ntp.conf file, xntpd dies if it cannot find a suitable server after
five consecutive polls, or four polling cycles. The number of polls for the
broadcastclient entry configuration is one count more than the server entry
configuration because the first successful reception of an NTP message for the
broadcastclient entry adds the timeserver to the list of timeservers.
Because of this behavior, you may have to issue the following command to synchronize
the local system time with another NTP server before starting xntpd:
/usr/sbin/ntpdate server
When a server entry is configured in the /etc/ntp.conf file, xntpd knows the
name of the timeserve and need to wait for only five polls to synchronize with the
timeserver.
The disp value in the ntpq -p command starts at approximately 16000 seconds and
is divided by two when a successful NTP message is received from the timeserver. If
a value lower than 1000 seconds is received, the client or peer attempts to synchronize
with the timeserver and an error message is received about the time difference. The
first reception writes a value of 16000 seconds to the disp value for the broadcastclient
entry. Because the client or peer polls the timeserver in case of a server entry, the original
disp value is set to disp.
For HP-UX NFS Diskless Clusters, the /sbin/init.d/xntpd script on the diskless
clients executes xntpdate to synchronize time with the diskless cluster server before
starting xntpd.
You can also specify a trusted time server explicitly in the file
/etc/rc.config.d/netdaemons, and /sbin/init.d/xntpd will execute
xntpdate, querying the specified time server.
Troubleshooting NTP 75