4. Installing NTP

The NTP project only produces source code releases of NTP. Pre-packaged or pre-compiled versions may be available from your Operating System vendor/aggregator/distributor.

The instructions shown below for specific operating systems presume that you have properly configured that operating systems package management infrastructure. You may need to also consult your operating system documentation.

See DesigningYourNTPNetwork for information about the overall layout of NTP on your network.

4.1. The NTP Project Reference Implementation

Users attempting to install NTP from source code should have some experience compiling software on UNIX or a Unix-like operating system.

The following software is used when installing NTP source code:

• A C compiler
• make (note that on some platforms, building outside of the main source directory requires GNU make.)
• tar
• gunzip
• libcap (note: needed for linux only if you wish to enable linux capabilities to drop root privileges and chroot ntpd)

Installation HOWTO

1. Download and unpack a tarball from SoftwareDownloads
2. Read and follow the directions in the INSTALL file
3. See ConfiguringNTP for information about how to configure NTP
4. Add the init scripts, etc., to make NTP start at boot time

4.2. Debian GNU/Linux

If you will be synchronizing to remote time servers:

1. apt-get install ntp-server ntp-simple
2. edit /etc/ntp.conf (see ConfiguringNTP)
3. restart ntpd with /etc/init.d/ntp-server restart

If you will using a ref-clock (e.g. GPS, WWVB, CHU):

1. apt-get install ntp-server ntp-refclock
2. edit /etc/ntp.conf (see ConfiguringNTP)
3. create any required symlinks for your ref-clock
4. restart ntpd with /etc/init.d/ntp-server restart

4.3. FreeBSD

1. cd /usr/ports/net/ntp
2. make install clean
3. edit /etc/ntp.conf (see ConfiguringNTP)
4. edit /etc/rc.conf
5. create any required symlinks for your ref-clock (if you are using one)
6. start ntpd with /etc/rc.d/ntpd start

4.4. NetBSD

1. ...

4.5. OpenBSD

1. ...

4.6. Microsoft Windows

1. ...