Notices

After downloading and installing OpenNTPD, I wonder how to use it. I assume it does not have GUI interface. How can its path be found on the file system? Does anyone know how to run OpenNTPD and use it? Please help. Thank you.

If I remember correctly, edit /etc/openntp.conf

On N900 I'd instead use gpsrecorder occasionally, it can sync time with gps.

Thank you for response. Found NTPD configuration file at location specified.

Next question, how to start and stop OpenNTPD?

Any clues appreciated. Thank you.

The wiki is pretty clear about it's workings...

http://wiki.maemo.org/NTP

[...]

I've been wondering why Wiki and instructions at TMO are full of do this->reboot and do that ->reboot. I mean, why all the rebooting? Why not start/restart the service that has been installed/reconfigured and keep on using the device.

Ladoga,

I have been wondering that myself but in the past I have assumed it was under the influence of M$ software that the world has come to believe that no setting on a computer could be applied without rebooting it and that no system error could be small enough to not justify a complete reinstall of the OS. (Some data-loss may appear TM)

So, when people are unable to find themselves a wiki to get informed, I usually do not start evangelizing my zelotic beliefs of not rebooting, reinstalling and whatnot. I just point out the info in the public domain that is at hand and leave it at that.

I'm still holding my breath for a "real" NTP daemon that adjusts the clock's rate. openntpd isn't it.

@evujumenuk
This version we use on the N900 came over from BSD, IIRC.

I'd like to hear what's wrong with it, as this is the only one that I have ever used and it seems to work on my N900. I couldn't get it to work on a friends' N900, though.

Furthermore; What version would you prefer? I mean, we (or someone) could always have a look and see if it compiles for ARM,

AIUI, openntpd just regularly checks with some NTP server(s) and sets the time on the spot. It's only annoying when the clock was too slow and time is shifted forward, a sudden jump in syslog is all that happens. In the other case, time is turned back and a few seconds (or minutes) "exist twice". Many daemons' behaviour is undefined when clocks run backwards. There shouldn't be many problems, but it's still ugly.

The two main competitors are the original NTP daemon and chrony. Both are available in Debian. chrony works better with spotty network connections and has a few other advantages, most of which are summarized on a Fedora feature page:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/ChronyDefaultNTP

As I said earlier, all three implementations compile on armel without problems.

P.S. Oh yeah, there's also the possibility of authenticating NTP using cryptographic hashes, I don't know whether chrony does this, but the traditional NTP daemon does.

Since not many carriers support NITZ (which the N9 supports), proper NTP support is a really nice thing to have on a mobile device exposed to wildly different ambient temperatures.

I don't have the build tools installed at the moment but I'll have a look.