SETUP-NTP(8)

✨ SETUP-NTP(8) ✨

okay so bestie, buckle up — this is the setup-ntp(8) page from your friendly neighborhood System Manager's Manual, and it's literally about making your clock not lie to you 💅

---

🎀 NAME 🎀

setup-ntp — configure NTP time synchronization

---

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

setup-ntp [-h] [busybox | openntpd | chrony | none]

---

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So setup-ntp installs and configures an NTP client, no cap. It's got your back for three whole flavors:

• busybox's ntpd
• openntpd
• chrony

And if you pass the value none? It just… skips NTP setup entirely. Respect, honestly 🙈

Here's the vibe check on how it runs:

• When you specify an NTP client as an argument, the script runs non-interactively — it just does the thing, main character energy, no questions asked ✨
• Without an argument, it interactively prompts you for a choice 🫶
• Bonus feature: you can also enter a date string to set the system time before you pick an NTP client. Iconic.

After installation, the NTP service gets enabled in the default runlevel and started — so it's up and running whether you're watching or not 🔥

---

💖 OPTIONS 💖

• -h — Display usage information and exit. That's it, that's the whole list, she's simple and I love her.

---

🧚 INTERACTIVE MODE 🧚

Without an argument, the script shows you the current time and then hits you with this prompt:

Which NTP client to run? ('busybox', 'openntpd', 'chrony' or 'none')

The default is busybox ⭐ (so if you just hit enter, that's what you're getting, no surprises).

You may also enter a date string here to set the system clock via date -s — which is lowkey a lifesaver when the system has no battery-backed clock, because otherwise your box wakes up thinking it's 1970 😭

ngl, that date-string trick is the most underrated part of this whole page. iykyk.

---

🌈 EXIT STATUS 🌈

• 0 — Success. Slay. Everything worked 💜
• non-zero — An error occurred. Not slay. Something went wrong 💀

---

🍓 SEE ALSO 🍓

ntpd(8), openntpd(8), chronyd(8), date(1), setup-alpine(8)

---

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Natanael Copa <ncopa@alpinelinux.org> and others 🫶

---

Alpine Linux 🏔️ — version date 2026-06-09. That's the whole footer, bestie, and honestly? Periodt. Go sync your clock ✨🕐