Did you sudo service ntp stop sudo ntpd -gq sudo service ntp start ? (as already pointed out [here][1].) Output should look like this: [ ok ] Stopping NTP server: ntpd. ntpd: time slew +0.001411s [ ok ] Starting NTP server: ntpd. Note that it can be slow: time ntpd -gq ntpd: time slew -0.007043s real 0m7.063s user 0m0.040s sys 0m0.020s You can also double check you are not talking to nothing; grep -P "^server" /etc/ntp.conf server 0.debian.pool.ntp.org iburst server 1.debian.pool.ntp.org iburst server 2.debian.pool.ntp.org iburst server 3.debian.pool.ntp.org iburst ping -c 1 0.debian.pool.ntp.org PING 0.debian.pool.ntp.org (192.99.10.37) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from sexi.fawong.com (192.99.10.37): icmp_req=1 ttl=55 time=32.8 ms --- 0.debian.pool.ntp.org ping statistics --- 1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 32.890/32.890/32.890/0.000 ms [1]: https://askubuntu.com/questions/254826/how-to-force-a-clock-update-using-ntp