Public bug reported: from `man ntpdate`:
Time adjustments are made by ntpdate in one of two ways. If ntpdate determines the clock is in error more than 0.5 second it will sim‐ ply step the time by calling the system settimeofday() routine. If the error is less than 0.5 seconds, it will slew the time by call‐ ing the system adjtime() routine. The latter technique is less disruptive and more accurate when the error is small, and works quite well when ntpdate is run by cron every hour or two. but later on: -B Force the time to always be slewed using the adjtime() system call, even if the measured offset is greater than +-128 ms. The default is to step the time using settimeofday() if the offset is greater than +-128 ms. Note that, if the offset is much greater than +-128 ms in this case, that it can take a long time (hours) to slew the clock to the correct value. During this time. the host should not be used to synchronize clients. Is the true value 0.128 s or 0.5 s? ** Affects: ntp (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Server Team, which is subscribed to ntp in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/830277 Title: ntpdate manpage is inconsistent about threshold To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ntp/+bug/830277/+subscriptions -- Ubuntu-server-bugs mailing list Ubuntu-server-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-server-bugs