Provided by: chrony_3.2-4ubuntu4.5_amd64 
NAME
chronyd - chrony daemon
SYNOPSIS
chronyd [OPTION]... [DIRECTIVE]...
DESCRIPTION
chronyd is a daemon for synchronisation of the system clock. It can synchronise the clock with NTP
servers, reference clocks (e.g. a GPS receiver), and manual input using wristwatch and keyboard via
chronyc. It can also operate as an NTPv4 (RFC 5905) server and peer to provide a time service to other
computers in the network.
If no configuration directives are specified on the command line, chronyd will read them from a
configuration file. The compiled-in default location of the file is /etc/chrony/chrony.conf.
Information messages and warnings will be logged to syslog.
OPTIONS
-4
With this option hostnames will be resolved only to IPv4 addresses and only IPv4 sockets will be
created.
-6
With this option hostnames will be resolved only to IPv6 addresses and only IPv6 sockets will be
created.
-f file
This option can be used to specify an alternate location for the configuration file (default
/etc/chrony/chrony.conf).
-n
When run in this mode, the program will not detach itself from the terminal.
-d
When run in this mode, the program will not detach itself from the terminal, and all messages will be
written to the terminal instead of syslog. When chronyd was compiled with debugging support, this
option can be used twice to print also debugging messages.
-l file
This option specifies a file which should be used for logging instead of syslog or terminal.
-q
When run in this mode, chronyd will set the system clock once and exit. It will not detach from the
terminal.
-Q
This option is similar to the -q option, except it only prints the offset without making any
corrections of the clock and it allows chronyd to be started without root privileges.
-r
This option will try to reload and then delete files containing sample histories for each of the
servers and reference clocks being used. These histories are created by using the dump command in
chronyc, or by setting the dumponexit directive in the configuration file. This option is useful if
you want to stop and restart chronyd briefly for any reason, e.g. to install a new version. However,
it should be used only on systems where the kernel can maintain clock compensation whilst not under
chronyd’s control (i.e. Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Solaris, and macOS 10.13 or later).
-R
When this option is used, the initstepslew directive and the makestep directive used with a positive
limit will be ignored. This option is useful when restarting chronyd and can be used in conjunction
with the -r option.
-s
This option will set the system clock from the computer’s real-time clock (RTC) or to the last
modification time of the file specified by the driftfile directive. Real-time clocks are supported
only on Linux.
If used in conjunction with the -r flag, chronyd will attempt to preserve the old samples after
setting the system clock from the RTC. This can be used to allow chronyd to perform long term
averaging of the gain or loss rate across system reboots, and is useful for systems with intermittent
access to network that are shut down when not in use. For this to work well, it relies on chronyd
having been able to determine accurate statistics for the difference between the RTC and system clock
last time the computer was on.
If the last modification time of the drift file is later than both the current time and the RTC time,
the system time will be set to it to restore the time when chronyd was previously stopped. This is
useful on computers that have no RTC or the RTC is broken (e.g. it has no battery).
-t timeout
This option sets a timeout (in seconds) after which chronyd will exit. If the clock is not
synchronised, it will exit with a non-zero status. This is useful with the -q or -Q option to shorten
the maximum time waiting for measurements, or with the -r option to limit the time when chronyd is
running, but still allow it to adjust the frequency of the system clock.
-u user
This option sets the name of the system user to which chronyd will switch after start in order to
drop root privileges. It overrides the user directive (default _chrony).
On Linux, chronyd needs to be compiled with support for the libcap library. On macOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD
and Solaris chronyd forks into two processes. The child process retains root privileges, but can only
perform a very limited range of privileged system calls on behalf of the parent.
-F level
This option configures a system call filter when chronyd is compiled with support for the Linux
secure computing (seccomp) facility. In level 1 the process is killed when a forbidden system call is
made, in level -1 the SYSSIG signal is thrown instead and in level 0 the filter is disabled (default
0).
It’s recommended to enable the filter only when it’s known to work on the version of the system where
chrony is installed as the filter needs to allow also system calls made from libraries that chronyd
is using (e.g. libc) and different versions or implementations of the libraries may make different
system calls. If the filter is missing some system call, chronyd could be killed even in normal
operation.
-P priority
On Linux, this option will select the SCHED_FIFO real-time scheduler at the specified priority (which
must be between 0 and 100). On macOS, this option must have either a value of 0 (the default) to
disable the thread time constraint policy or 1 for the policy to be enabled. Other systems do not
support this option.
-m
This option will lock chronyd into RAM so that it will never be paged out. This mode is only
supported on Linux.
-x
This option disables the control of the system clock. chronyd will not make any adjustments of the
clock, but it will still track its offset and frequency relative to the estimated true time, and be
able to operate as an NTP server. This allows chronyd to run without the capability to adjust or set
the system clock (e.g. in some containers).
-v
With this option chronyd will print version number to the terminal and exit.
FILES
/etc/chrony/chrony.conf
SEE ALSO
chronyc(1), chrony.conf(5)
BUGS
For instructions on how to report bugs, please visit <https://chrony.tuxfamily.org/>.
AUTHORS
chrony was written by Richard Curnow, Miroslav Lichvar, and others.