10.04 LTS Server - setting the clock

[Colin Law]

On 20 October 2011 15:10, william drescher <william at techservsys.com> wrote:
> I thought when I set up the server I asked it to check with a time server
> periodically, but now it is 5 minutes ahead.
> I found the date command, but can't figure out the format for the new time
> string:
> eg: sudo date -sXXXXXXXXXXX
>
> The docs say human readable free format but
> sudo date -s=2011-10-20 10:07
>
> gets the reply:
> date: the argument '10.07' lacks a leading '+';
> when using  an option to specify date(s), any non-option argument must be a
> format string beginning with '+'
>
> What is the command to set the time from a time server ?
>
> How do I ask the system to do this periodically ?

I think ntp is what you want, see
https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/serverguide/C/NTP.html

Colin