Ansible Role: NTP

Installs NTP on Linux.

Requirements

None.

Role Variables

Available variables are listed below, along with default values (see defaults/main.yml):

ntp_enabled: true

Whether to start the ntpd service and enable it at system boot. On many virtual machines that run inside a container (like OpenVZ or VirtualBox), it's recommended you don't run the NTP daemon, since the host itself should be set to synchronize time for all its child VMs.

ntp_timezone: Etc/UTC

Set the timezone for your server.

ntp_package: ntp

The package to install which provides NTP functionality. The default is ntp for most platforms, or chrony on RHEL/CentOS 7 and later.

ntp_daemon: [various]

The default NTP daemon should be correct for your distribution, but there are some cases where you may want to override the default, e.g. if you're running ntp on newer versions of RHEL/CentOS.

ntp_config_file: /etc/ntp.conf

The path to the NTP configuration file. The default is /etc/ntp.conf for most platforms, or /etc/chrony.conf on RHEL/CentOS 7 and later.

ntp_manage_config: false

Set to true to allow this role to manage the NTP configuration file (/etc/ntp.conf).

ntp_driftfile: [various]

The default NTP driftfile should be correct for your distribution, but there are some cases where you may want to override the default.

ntp_area: ''

Set the NTP Pool Area to use. Defaults to none, which uses the worldwide pool.

ntp_servers:
  - "0{{ '.' + ntp_area if ntp_area else '' }}.pool.ntp.org iburst"
  - "1{{ '.' + ntp_area if ntp_area else '' }}.pool.ntp.org iburst"
  - "2{{ '.' + ntp_area if ntp_area else '' }}.pool.ntp.org iburst"
  - "3{{ '.' + ntp_area if ntp_area else '' }}.pool.ntp.org iburst"

Specify the NTP servers you'd like to use. Only takes effect if you allow this role to manage NTP's configuration, by setting ntp_manage_config to True.

ntp_restrict:
  - "127.0.0.1"
  - "::1"

Restrict NTP access to these hosts; loopback only, by default.

ntp_cron_handler_enabled: false

Whether to restart the cron daemon after the timezone has changed.

ntp_tinker_panic: true

Enable tinker panic, which is useful when running NTP in a VM.

ntp_chrony_maxdistance: '3'

Increase the maximum root distance between the host & the ntp source.

Dependencies

None.

Example Playbook

- hosts: all
  roles:
    - geerlingguy.ntp

Inside vars/main.yml:

ntp_timezone: America/Chicago

License

MIT / BSD

Author Information

This role was created in 2014 by Jeff Geerling, author of Ansible for DevOps.