systemd-timedated is not keeping the time synchronized

[Romano Giannetti]

I do not know if this is related to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/systemd/+bug/1409594

In my system, 14.04 fully updated, the time is not kept in sync with network servers.

When starting, I have this complain:

Feb 11 08:47:51 pern kernel: [775910.071548] systemd-timedated[14157]: /etc/localtime should be a symbolic link to a timezone data file in /usr/share/zoneinfo/.

But then no error is shown, and the setting panels says that I am using network time --- which is not true. After a day, if I deselect/reselect network time, I have:

SYS: Feb 11 08:47:58 pern kernel: [775917.016524] systemd-timedated[14157]: Set NTP to disabled
SYS: Feb 11 08:47:59 pern kernel: [775918.305488] systemd-timedated[14157]: Set NTP to enabled
SYS: Feb 11 08:48:59 pern ntpdate[14170]: step time server 91.189.94.4 offset 53.842810 sec
SYS: Feb 11 08:49:01 pern dovecot: imap: Warning: Time jumped forwards 53 seconds

...so it's definitely not working. Any help/hint/workaround?

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

The symlink warning is unrelated, it's just cosmetical.

timedated is not an NTP service; it's not supposed to keep the time synchronized. That's either done by "ntpdate" (which is installed by default on desktops) or "ntp" (which you can install yourself). timedatectl only does one-time time setting/querying.

[Romano Giannetti (romano-giannetti)]

Thanks. I was convinced that checking "use netweork time" in the control panel was equivalent to install ntp.
Installed and fixed.

Sorry for the noise.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

> Thanks. I was convinced that checking "use netweork time" in the control panel was equivalent to install ntp.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to be, but it might also check for/install "ntpdate". If you think this is confusing or not working right, can you please report this against unity-control-center? Thanks!

[Romano Giannetti (romano-giannetti)]

I use Ubuntu Gnome remix, so this is gnome-control-center, does not know if it applies to Unity too.
Nevertheless: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-control-center/+bug/1420698

[Steven Howell (steven-c-howell)]

I similarly noticed that one of my three computers running Ubuntu 14.04 did not have ntp installed after selecting "use network time". I noticed this when one computer did not update the time for DST. Looking into it further, I realized it did not have ntp installed. Manually installing ntp solved the problem but I never manually installed this on either of the other computers so I am not sure why I had to for this one.