Learn how to set up time synchronization on Ubuntu using timedatectl, timesyncd, and chrony. Follow this guide to keep your server clock accurate.

DigitalOcean Community's platform is a central hub for developers and sysadmins using DigitalOcean's cloud infrastructure, offering insights into cloud computing, DevOps practices, and open-source technologies. Through tutorials, Q&A, and community forums, DO_Community offers insights into deploying and managing applications on DigitalOcean's cloud platform. Developers can learn about Linux server administration, containerization, and automation tools to build and scale applications in the cloud.

DigitalOcean Community

A comprehensive guide to setting up and managing time synchronization on Ubuntu. Covers using timedatectl to check and configure time zones, understanding the relationship between the system clock and hardware clock (RTC), verifying systemd-timesyncd as the default NTP client, and installing chrony as a more advanced alternative. Includes a comparison table of systemd-timesyncd, chrony, and legacy ntpd, plus a troubleshooting section covering common issues like unsynchronized clocks, network connectivity problems, conflicting services, and virtualized environment drift.

How To Set Up Time Synchronization on Ubuntu

Controlling systemd-timesyncd with timedatectl

Comparing systemd-timesyncd , chrony , and ntpd