Ansible Role: NTP

This role installs NTP (Network Time Protocol) on Linux systems.

Requirements

No specific requirements.

Role Variables

Here are the available variables and their default values (found in defaults/main.yml):

• ntp_enabled: true
  Controls whether to start the NTP service and enable it to run at system startup. For many virtual machines (VMs) inside a container, it's better not to run the NTP service, as time synchronization should be handled by the host system.

• ntp_timezone: Etc/UTC
  Sets the timezone for your server.

• ntp_package: ntp
  The package to install that provides NTP functionality. The default is ntp for most systems or chrony for RHEL/CentOS 7 and newer.

• ntp_daemon: [various]
  The standard NTP daemon for your system. You might need to change this if using ntp on newer RHEL/CentOS versions.

• ntp_config_file: /etc/ntp.conf
  The path for the NTP configuration file. This is usually /etc/ntp.conf, or /etc/chrony.conf for RHEL/CentOS 7 and newer.

• ntp_manage_config: false
  Set to true to allow this role to manage the NTP configuration file.

• ntp_driftfile: [various]
  Default NTP driftfile path; you may need to change this for your system.

• ntp_area: ''
  Set the NTP Pool Area. Defaults to none, which uses the global 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 to use. Only works if ntp_manage_config is set to True.

• ntp_restrict:

  • "127.0.0.1"
  • "::1"
    Restricts NTP access to only these hosts (loopback).

• ntp_cron_handler_enabled: false
  Indicates whether to restart the cron service after changing the timezone.

• ntp_tinker_panic: true
  Enables tinker panic, which is helpful for NTP in a VM.

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.