Ubuntu – Update time for daylight savings time, set system clock to UTC time, and stay in sync with online server

clocktime

My two Ubuntu desktops updated their time for daylight savings time but my laptop did not. I am not sure the difference. They are all set to get their time "Automatically from the Internet" and are on the same time zone. How do I get the laptop to update and continue to stay in sync using the Internet?

I am using Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS, 64-bit version.

EDIT:
All three dual-boot Ubuntu 14.04 and Windows 7 though I have not booted any of them in Windows in several weeks/months. I set these machines up several months ago so I am not certain but I intended that they all be set to use UTC time (following this link to make sure Windows cooperates). I just opened /etc/default/rcS on the laptop and one of the desktops and they both have UTC=no set so that seems not to be the case. Looking at the system time on the laptop I get:

>>> sudo hwclock --show
Wed 11 Mar 2015 06:33:13 AM EDT  -0.188065 seconds

while for one of the desktops I get:

>>> sudo hwclock --show
Wed 11 Mar 2015 11:32:56 AM EDT  -0.219271 seconds

and it is just after 11:30 AM EDT (3:30 PM UTC) as I type this. Comparing those results, it seems the the desktop is on local time while I don't know what the laptop is on as EST = UTC - 5 and EDT = UTC - 4.

How would I update each system to in fact be on UTC time (I intend to follow this to make sure Windows does not change things)?

Best Answer

See if you have a file /etc/ntp.conf, then see if this file contains line starting with the keyword 'server' (without the quotes of course). If you have this then the time will be regularly synchronized with timeservers.

If you do not have this file then no time keeping service is installed. To install ntpd, from a terminal prompt enter:

sudo apt-get install ntp

That is about it in a nutshell. If you do not have this file or if you are not sure what about what you are doing please refer to this resource: https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/serverguide/NTP.html. It contains more useful information than I can explain here. Although it is about servers it works equally good for desktops and laptops.

To modify the systems to use UTC time, edit /etc/default/rcS (e.g. sudo emacs /etc/default/rcS) setting UTC=yes.

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