System time running fast

[Tim]

Tanmoy Chatterjee:
>> I have not done this though. Is it necessary?

suvayu ali:
> As I mentioned, its recommended but not necessary. With ntpd turned on
> your clock will be kept synchronised with other time servers on the
> internet. This is a good way to keep your system clock synchronised
> without worrying about it.

And, so long as your computer stays close to real time, NTP will keep it
exactly on real time, and you'll never have to set your clock again.

Only if the computer's clock get seriously out of step will NTP abandon
trying to keep it on time, automatically.  Though, you can configure
things so that each boot up the clock is forced to real time, and NTP
then keeps it on time.

In a era where you're surrounded by equipment with clocks, it's nice to
have at least some of them take care of themselves.  If you have several
computers, it's useful for fault finding if all their logs have
synchronised timestamps in their logs.  And if you ever have to submit
something like a firewall log to someone to trace an attack, they're not
going to want it unless it's timestamps are precise.  A NTP synchronised
clock will do the job for you.

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686

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