NTP

NTP stands for Network Time Protocol. It is used to synchronize the time on your Linux system with a centralized NTP server. A local NTP server on the network can be synchronized with an external timing source to keep all the servers in your organization in-sync with an accurate time.

If the NTP check is enabled in the Sysdig agent, it reports the time offset of the local agent from an NTP server.

This page describes how to edit the configuration to collect information, the metrics available for integration, and a sample result in the Sysdig Monitor UI.

Sysdig Agent Configuration

Review how to Edit dragent.yaml to Integrate or Modify Application Checks.

Default Configuration

By default, Sysdig's dragent.default.yaml does not provide any configuration for NTP.

Add the configuration in Example 1 to the dragent.yaml file to enable NTP checks.

Never edit dragent.default.yaml directly; always edit only dragent.yaml.

Example

- name: ntp
    interval: 60
    pattern:
      comm: systemd
    conf:
      host: us.pool.ntp.org
      offset_threshold: 60

  • host : (mandatory) provides the host name of NTP server.

  • offset_threshold: (optional) provides the difference (in seconds) between the local clock and the NTP server, when the ntp.in_sync service check becomes CRITICAL. The default is 60 seconds.

Metrics Available

ntp.offset, the time difference between the local clock and the NTP reference clock, is the primary NTP metric.

See also NTP Metrics.

Service Checks

ntp.in_sync:

Returns CRITICAL if the NTP offset is greater than the threshold specified in dragent.yaml, otherwise OK.

Result in the Monitor UI