Time Synchronization

Time synchronization is very important for clusters of systems including storage. It is especially true for MPI (Message Passing Interface) applications such as those in the HPC world. Without time synchronization, you can get wrong answers or your application can fail. Therefore, it is a good idea to sync the DGX-2, DGX-1, or DGX Station time.

Ubuntu 16.04

If you are using Ubuntu 16.04 as the base for your DGX OS image, realize that it uses systemd instead of init, so the process of configuring NTP (network time protocol) is a little different than using Ubuntu 14.04. If you are unsure on how to accomplish this, below are some basic instructions.
For more information, you can:
  • Run the following commands:
    $ man timedatectl command
$ man systemd-timesyncd.service
  • Read the timesyncd.conf article.

Here is an outline of the steps you should follow:

  1. Edit the /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf file and set NTP and other options. For more information, see the timesyncd.conf article.
  2. Run as root the following command: 
    $ timedatectl set-ntp true
  3. Check that timesyncd is enabled and run the following command: 
    $ systemctl status systemd-timesyncd.service
  4. Ensure timesyncd is enabled. If timesyncd is not enabled, run the following command. 
    $ systemctl enable systemd-timesyncd.service &&  systemctl start systemd-timesyncd.service

    You can also check via timedatectl that you configured the correct timezone and other basic options.