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Installation

Installers & Packages

The recommended way of installing ntpd-rs is through an installer or package manager for your system.

Linux

We recommend the packages from our release page. The package takes care of putting the configuration in the right place and setting up the recommended users and permissions. The default configuration file is located at /etc/ntpd-rs/ntp.toml

On a debian based linux, the .deb package can be installed with 

$ sudo dpkg -i /path/to/deb/file.deb

On a red hat based linux, the .rpm package can be installed with 

$ sudo rpm -ivh /path/to/rpm/file.rpm
$ sudo systemctl start ntpd-rs

FreeBSD

The ntpd-rs binary is available on ports. The default configuration file is located at %%ETCDIR%%/ntp.toml, which typically resolves to /usr/local/etc/ntpd-rs/ntp.toml.

macOS

There is no package or installer for macOS at the moment.

Install From Source

On platforms without an installer or package, building from source is an option. ntpd-rs is written in rust. We strongly recommend using rustup to install a rust toolchain, because the version provided by system package managers tends to be out of date. Be sure to use a recent version of the rust compiler. To build ntpd-rs run

cargo build --release

This produces a ntp-daemon binary at target/release/ntp-daemon, which is the main NTP daemon. Running it from the command line to test it should provide output like:

> sudo target/release/ntp-daemon -c pkg/common/ntp.toml.default
2023-09-04T12:01:44.055104Z  WARN ntpd::daemon::observer: Abnormal termination of the state observer: Could not create observe socket at "/run/ntpd-rs/observe" because its parent directory does not exist
2023-09-04T12:01:44.055183Z  WARN ntpd::daemon::observer: The state observer will not be available
2023-09-04T12:01:44.071353Z  INFO ntpd::daemon::system: new source source_id=SourceId(1) addr=185.172.91.110:123 spawner=SpawnerId(1)
2023-09-04T12:01:44.071735Z  INFO ntpd::daemon::system: new source source_id=SourceId(2) addr=162.159.200.1:123 spawner=SpawnerId(1)
2023-09-04T12:01:44.071944Z  INFO ntpd::daemon::system: new source source_id=SourceId(3) addr=45.138.55.62:123 spawner=SpawnerId(1)
2023-09-04T12:01:44.072150Z  INFO ntpd::daemon::system: new source source_id=SourceId(4) addr=213.154.236.182:123 spawner=SpawnerId(1)
2023-09-04T12:01:44.084626Z  INFO ntp_proto::algorithm::kalman: No consensus cluster found
2023-09-04T12:01:44.085422Z  INFO ntp_proto::algorithm::kalman: No consensus cluster found
2023-09-04T12:01:44.086879Z  INFO ntp_proto::algorithm::kalman: Offset: 2.3686082232975885+-72.6249392570874ms, frequency: 0+-5773502.691896258ppm
2023-09-04T12:01:44.087846Z  INFO ntp_proto::algorithm::kalman: Offset: 2.7204471636925773+-61.339759726948046ms, frequency: 0+-5000000.000000001ppm

To use this binary as your system NTP daemon, you must also:

  • move the ntp-daemon binary to an appropriate location (e.g. /usr/bin),
  • set up a configuration in /etc/ntpd-rs/ntp.toml (we suggest copying the configuration under docs/examples/ntp.toml.default),
  • set permissions for the binary and config file for the binary to be able to run and read the configuration,
  • configure the binary to be run as a system service.

Running as a system service

It is by far the easiest to have your operating system and standard tools take care of the details like:

  • ensure that no competing NTP daemon is running
  • ensure that the daemon is started on startup
  • handling the ntpd-rs logs

Below are configurations for linux (using SystemD) and FreeBSD (using a .rc file).

Linux + SystemD

This is the SystemD configuration used by the ntpd-rs linux installer.

[Unit]
Description=Rust Network Time Service
Documentation=https://github.com/pendulum-project/ntpd-rs
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target
Conflicts=systemd-timesyncd.service ntp.service chrony.service

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=no
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/ntp-daemon
Environment="RUST_LOG=info"
RuntimeDirectory=ntpd-rs
User=ntpd-rs
Group=ntpd-rs
AmbientCapabilities=CAP_SYS_TIME
# Note: when running a server on the default port 123, permissions to bind to
# low (<1024) ports is also needed, which can be given with
# AmbientCapabilities=CAP_SYS_TIME CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Note that this requires an ntpd-rs user to be present on the system, which can be created with 

sudo adduser --system --home /var/lib/ntpd-rs/ --group ntpd-rs
or if your system doesn't have adduser 
sudo useradd --home-dir /var/lib/ntpd-rs --system --create-home --user-group ntpd-rs

This user must have access to the configuration folder: 

sudo chown ntpd-rs:ntpd-rs /etc/ntpd-rs/ntp.toml
sudo chmod 0644 /etc/ntpd-rs/ntp.toml

FreeBSD

This is the rc script used by the ntpd-rs package on freshports.

#!/bin/sh

# PROVIDE: ntp_daemon
# REQUIRE: DAEMON FILESYSTEMS devfs
# BEFORE:  LOGIN
# KEYWORD: nojail resume shutdown
#
. /etc/rc.subr

name=ntp_daemon
rcvar=ntp_daemon_enable

load_rc_config $name

ntp_daemon_enable=${ntp_daemon_enable-"NO"}
ntp_daemon_config=${ntp_daemon_config-"%%ETCDIR%%/ntp.toml"}
ntp_daemon_socket=${ntp_daemon_socket-"/var/run/ntpd-rs"}

command="/usr/bin/true"
procname="/usr/sbin/daemon"
pidfile="/var/run/${name}.pid"

start_cmd="ntp_daemon_start"
stop_cmd="ntp_daemon_stop"

is_process_running()
{
    [ -f ${pidfile} ] && procstat $(cat ${pidfile}) >/dev/null 2>&1
}

ntp_daemon_start()
{
    [ -d "${ntp_daemon_socket}" ] || /bin/mkdir "${ntp_daemon_socket}"
    /usr/sbin/chown _ntp:_ntp "${ntp_daemon_socket}"
    /usr/sbin/daemon -P ${pidfile} -r -f -o /var/log/ntp_daemon.log -H %%PREFIX%%/bin/ntp-daemon --config "${ntp_daemon_config}"

    if is_process_running; then
        echo "Started ntp-daemon (pid=$(cat ${pidfile}))"
    else
        echo "Failed to start ntp-daemon"
    fi
}

ntp_daemon_stop()
{
    if is_process_running; then
        /bin/rm -rf "${ntp_daemon_socket}"
        local pid=$(cat ${pidfile})
        echo "Stopping ntp-daemon (pid=${pid})"
        kill -- -${pid}
    else
        echo "ntp-daemon isn't running"
    fi
}

run_rc_command "$1"