Install and Configure Network Time Protocol (NTP) on Arch Linux

NTP, also known as a “Network Time Protocol,” is an Internet time protocol used to sync computer time with network time. NTP is built on UDP and uses port 123 for communication, while NTP clients use port 1023. NTP can be installed on any operating system and uses time from an external source to maintain time within its local internal clock. Generally, NTP is required for many distributed applications where time synchronization is a must between all nodes.

In this post, we will show you how to install NTP on Arch Linux.

Step 1 – Configure Repository

By default, the default repository is outdated in Arch Linux, so you will need to modify the default mirror list. You can do it by editing the mirrorlist configuration file:

nano  /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Remove all lines and add the following lines:

## Score: 0.7, United States
Server = http://mirror.us.leaseweb.net/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 0.8, United States
Server = http://lug.mtu.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = http://mirror.nl.leaseweb.net/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 0.9, United Kingdom
Server = http://mirror.bytemark.co.uk/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.5, United Kingdom
Server = http://mirrors.manchester.m247.com/arch-linux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = http://archlinux.dcc.fc.up.pt/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 6.6, United States
Server = http://mirror.cs.pitt.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 6.7, United States
Server = http://mirrors.acm.wpi.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 6.8, United States
Server = http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 7.1, India
Server = http://mirror.cse.iitk.ac.in/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 10.1, United States
Server = http://mirrors.xmission.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch

Save and close the file, then update all the package indexes with the following command:

pacman -Syu

Step 2 – Basic Time Commands

You can use the date command to view the data and time on your server.

date

You will get the following output.

Wed Jan  4 11:05:42 AM UTC 2023

As you can see, the timezone is set to UTC. To list all time zones, run the following command.

timedatectl list-timezones

You can set the timezone to America/New_York using the following command.

timedatectl set-timezone America/New_York

You can also verify time synchronization on your server using the following command.

timedatectl

You should see that time synchronization is active on your server.

               Local time: Wed 2023-01-04 06:07:10 EST
           Universal time: Wed 2023-01-04 11:07:10 UTC
                 RTC time: Wed 2023-01-04 11:07:11
                Time zone: America/New_York (EST, -0500)
System clock synchronized: yes
              NTP service: active
          RTC in local TZ: no

Before installing NTP, you will need to disable time synchronization. You can disable it with the following command.

timedatectl set-ntp no

You can verify it with the following command.

timedatectl

Output.

               Local time: Wed 2023-01-04 06:07:52 EST
           Universal time: Wed 2023-01-04 11:07:52 UTC
                 RTC time: Wed 2023-01-04 11:07:53
                Time zone: America/New_York (EST, -0500)
System clock synchronized: yes
              NTP service: inactive
          RTC in local TZ: no

Step 3 – Install and Configure NTP

By default, the NTP package is available in the Arch Linux default repository. You can install it with the following command.

pacman -S ntp

Once NTP is installed, edit the NTP default configuration file:

nano /etc/ntp.conf

Change the default NTP server pool with your nearest server.

server 0.asia.pool.ntp.org
server 1.asia.pool.ntp.org
server 2.asia.pool.ntp.org
server 3.asia.pool.ntp.org

Save and close the file, then restart NTP to apply the changes.

systemctl restart ntpd

Now, verify time synchronization with the following command.

ntpq -p

If everything is fine, you will get the following output.

     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter
==============================================================================
 103.177.8.228 ( .INIT.          16 u    -   64    0    0.000   +0.000   0.000
 time.firstlink. 202.12.97.45     2 u    3   64    1  268.468   -4.858   0.000
 time.cloudflare 10.15.13.248     3 u    6   64    1    2.406   -0.133   0.000
 ns.tu.ac.th     110.170.126.105  2 u    6   64    1  264.671   +7.973   0.000

Conclusion

In this post, we explained how to install an NTP server on Arch Linux. You can now install NTP in your local network to synchronize system time with internet time. You can test your NTP server on dedicated server hosting from Atlantic.Net!