Eventually my Pi will help me when I’m making my famous home brew. However to do that I need it to keep accurate time.
If you already own a Raspberry Pi then you will know that there is no real time clock. The solution to this is to use NTP (Network time protocol) connecting to a time server.
To check the current system time type ‘date’ from a shell
This is where my Pi falls over. It will not keep accurate time.
To rectify this you have to alter a system config file, but first we will be backing up this file just in case of any mistakes.
The file in question is called ntp.conf and can be found in the /etc folder.
To back up the file type the following:
‘sudo cp /etc/ntp.conf /etc/ntp_backup.conf’
into your shell. If you are like me and using your Pi as a headless server then logging in using ssh will land you at a command line. If your using the desktop then start up a command line from the shortcut on your desktop.
Right, next is setting the time servers. I live in the UK so these will be set to ones within the UK.
Type ‘sudo nano /etc/ntp.conf’
you will see on the page something like this:
server 0.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 1.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 2.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 3.pool.ntp.org iburst
Change this to your local time servers. Navigate to http://www.pool.ntp.org/en/use.html to find yours.
Example if your in the UK you should change the entry in your ntp.conf file so it looks like this.
server 0.uk.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 1.uk.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 2.uk.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 3.uk.pool.ntp.org iburst
Finally further down the file you will see the following:
restrict 127.0.0.1
restrict ::1
comment these out by inserting a ‘#’ (without quotes) at the beginning of these lines
press crtl + x then ‘Y’ will save your changes
Ok now that is done the next stage is to update the time. you can reboot or:
type ‘sudo service ntp restart’
followed by ‘date’
You now should have the current time and date displayed every time you type ‘date’
Happy time keeping 🙂
roberthanson1 
Hi, I tried that but I couldn’t see any change in the date after restarting. any idea what could be the reason
Hi szahran. The raspberry pi that I did this on has been keeping accurate time for almost a year now:) I can’t think of a reason other than possibly firewall settings. If you post your NTP.conf file here I will gladly look over it for you.
“NTP won’t normally reset the clock if it’s off by more than 1000s.
If you run ‘ntpd -gq’ it ignores the clock being way adrift from ntp time and will force it to be correct then close. The old ntpdate program does the same thing.”
credit: I found it here earlier today when I was searching on some raspi NTP issues
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=91&t=16058
Hi Dan
Thanks for the info. I hope if Sazhran still has an issue he reads this. When im back at a pc i will edit the original post to point out the possible time sync issue.