Note: As of early-2021 the NTP Synchronization is much more accurate. The device accuracy went from +/- 10 seconds per day to < 100 ms. And this is even possible with Synchronization set to Manual.
Common Settings
Obtain time from a network time server
Enable this option to allow the NTP servers to update the time on the IPFire device.
Primary (and Secondary) NTP server
For most cases the 0.ipfire.pool.ntp.org and the 1.ipfire.pool.ntp.org NTP servers will be perfect.
If you find the IPFire NTP server is not what you want, then go to Global - pool.ntp.org and pick the continent, pick the country and use the NTP pool servers for that country.
Provide time to local network
IPFire's system time is synchronized with an Internet time server. To provide a precise time source to the local network, IPFire hosts a NTP server itself, but this is not activated by default. Activate this option the web interface.
Synchronization
You can also specify when IPFire should synchronize its time with the given internet time server. The available synchronization options are:
- Hours, Days, Weeks, and Months
- or Manually.
Manual setting
For those who prefer to set their time manually, the following command can be used via the Linux Console:
ntpdate 0.ipfire.pool.ntp.org
If an error message appears here, try switching the time server off and on with:
/etc/init.d/ntp stop
/etc/init.d/ntp start
If unsuccessful, the time can also be set manually with:
date --set "05/13/2010 09:45:00"
(The above format should be mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss)
Note: If the time should be passed to the BIOS, enter this command into the Console:
hwclock --systohc
Using IPFire as a time source for Windows
On the IPFire WUI enable Provide time to local network (Services -> Time Server).
Now configure Windows with the time server's (IPFire's) address. When configured, Windows will look like this:
Using IPFire as a time source for Mac OS
On the IPFire WUI enable Provide time to local network (Services -> Time Server).
On the Mac go to Date & Time (System Preferences -> Date & Time -> Date & Time tab). Click Set date and time automatically and then enter the IPFire address.
Using IPFire as a time source for Linux running systemd-timesyncd
On the IPFire WUI enable Provide time to local network (Services -> Time Server).
On the Linux system, first of all run the command timedatectl status and verify that the "NTP service" field is "active" (otherwise you should enable it with the command timedatectl set-ntp true). If connections with remote NTP servers are blocked by IPFire, the "System clock synchronized" field will be shown as "no" (this is expected and will be fixed later). To verify the lists of NTP servers currently configured, run the command timedatectl show-timesync --all (fields "SystemNTPServers" and "FallbackNTPServers").
To configure the IPFire time server, you may directly edit the file /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf, but creating a "drop-in" file in the /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf.d/ directory is actually recommended. If this directory does not exist, create it with the command sudo mkdir -p /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf.d/, and then create a file within it named for instance 95ipfire.conf, with the following text:
[Time]
NTP=ipfire.localdomain
FallbackNTP=
Now restart the systemd-timesyncd service with the command sudo systemctl restart systemd-timesyncd.service (or otherwise reboot the system), and run again the commands timedatectl status (it should show "System clock synchronized -> yes") and timedatectl show-timesync --all (it should show "SystemNTPServers=ipfire.localdomain" and "FallbackNTPServers=").
For further information, see:
- https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/timedatectl.html
- https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd-timesyncd.service.html
- https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/timesyncd.conf.html
- https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Systemd-timesyncd
Using an IP address for the Primary NTP Server
Note: This is not recommended except for those experiencing issues with location based outgoing firewall rules.
For those who block countries and zones by GeoIP-Outgoing via firewall rule and or for response incoming zones, please set the NTP server to an IP address. This is used instead of choosing NTP domain such as 0.ipfire.pool.ntp.org.
Note: The infrastructure behind the ipfire.pool.ntp.org vendor zone is not owned or administrated by IPFire.
An NTP server like pool.ntp.org is a dynamic worldwide collection of networked servers. For more explanation please visit Wikipedia - NTP pool.
Simple example
When entering ping 0.ipfire.pool.ntp.org or 1.ipfire.pool.ntp.org at different times, we will get different IPs of different countries as a response of the dynamic pool. Therefore you need to make sure that you choose NTP server IP of none blocked zones, or of your country ex. of your ISP.