This manual page describes the format of the ntpd() configuration file. It has the following format:

Empty lines and lines beginning with the character are ignored.

Keywords may be specified multiple times within the configuration file. They are as follows:

listen on address

Specify a local IP address or a hostname the ntpd() daemon should listen on. If it appears multiple times, ntpd() will listen on each given address. If is given as an address, ntpd() will listen on all local addresses. ntpd() does not listen on any address by default. For example: listen on * listen on 127.0.0.1 listen on ::1

server address

Specify the IP address or the hostname of an NTP server to synchronize to. If it appears multiple times, ntpd() will try to synchronize to all of the servers specified. If a hostname resolves to multiple IPv4 and/or IPv6 addresses, ntpd() uses the first address. If it does not get a reply, ntpd() retries with the next address and continues to do so until a working address is found. For example: server 10.0.0.2 server ntp.example.org To provide redundancy, it is good practice to configure multiple servers. In general, best accuracy is obtained by using servers that have a low network latency.

servers address

As with server , specify the IP address or hostname of an NTP server to synchronize to. If it appears multiple times, ntpd() will try to synchronize to all of the servers specified. Should the hostname resolve to multiple IP addresses, ntpd() will try to synchronize to all of them. For example: servers pool.ntp.org

/etc/ntpd.conf

default ntpd() configuration file

The file format first appeared in