The Amazon Time Sync Service provides a highly accurate and reliable time reference that is natively accessible from Amazon EC2 instances.
Built on Amazon’s proven network infrastructure, the service utilises a fleet of redundant satellite-connected and atomic reference clocks in AWS regions to deliver current time readings of the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) global standard. The service is designed to be highly available with a continuously monitored time infrastructure and provides a low variance reference time source. Leap seconds are known to cause application errors, and can be a concern for developers and system administrators. The Amazon Time Sync Service automatically smooths out (smears) leap seconds that are periodically added to UTC, so that customers do not have to worry about application errors due to their addition.
Setting the Time for Your Linux Instance
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/set-time.html
The Amazon Time Sync Service is available through NTP at the 169.254.169.123 IP address for any instance running in a VPC. Your instance does not require access to the internet, and you do not have to configure your security group rules or your network ACL rules to allow access. Use the following procedures to configure the Amazon Time Sync Service on your instance using the chrony client.
To configure your Ubuntu or Debian derivative instance to use the Amazon Time Sync Service
Connect to your instance and use apt to install the chrony package.
ubuntu:~$ sudo apt install chrony
Note:
If necessary, update your instance first by running sudo apt update.
Open the /etc/chrony/chrony.conf file using a text editor (such as vim or nano). Add the following line after any other server or pool statements that are already present in the file, and save your changes:
server 169.254.169.123 prefer iburst
Restart the chrony service.
ubuntu:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/chrony restart
[ ok ] Restarting chrony (via systemctl): chrony.service.
Verify that chrony is using the 169.254.169.123 IP address to synchronize the time.
ubuntu:~$ chronyc sources -v
210 Number of sources = 7
.-- Source mode '^' = server, '=' = peer, '#' = local clock.
/ .- Source state '*' = current synced, '+' = combined , '-' = not combined,
| / '?' = unreachable, 'x' = time may be in error, '~' = time too variable.
|| .- xxxx [ yyyy ] +/- zzzz
|| Reachability register (octal) -. | xxxx = adjusted offset,
|| Log2(Polling interval) --. | | yyyy = measured offset,
|| \ | | zzzz = estimated error.
|| | | \
MS Name/IP address Stratum Poll Reach LastRx Last sample
===============================================================================
^* 169.254.169.123 3 6 17 12 +15us[ +57us] +/- 320us
^- tbag.heanet.ie 1 6 17 13 -3488us[-3446us] +/- 1779us
^- ec2-12-34-231-12.eu-west- 2 6 17 13 +893us[ +935us] +/- 7710us
^? 2a05:d018:c43:e312:ce77:6 0 6 0 10y +0ns[ +0ns] +/- 0ns
^? 2a05:d018:d34:9000:d8c6:5 0 6 0 10y +0ns[ +0ns] +/- 0ns
^? tshirt.heanet.ie 0 6 0 10y +0ns[ +0ns] +/- 0ns
^? bray.walcz.net 0 6 0 10y +0ns[ +0ns] +/- 0ns
In the output that’s returned, ^* indicates the preferred time source. Verify the time synchronization metrics that are reported by chrony.
ubuntu:~$ chronyc tracking
Reference ID : 169.254.169.123 (169.254.169.123)
Stratum : 4
Ref time (UTC) : Wed Nov 29 07:41:57 2017
System time : 0.000000011 seconds slow of NTP time
Last offset : +0.000041659 seconds
RMS offset : 0.000041659 seconds
Frequency : 10.141 ppm slow
Residual freq : +7.557 ppm
Skew : 2.329 ppm
Root delay : 0.000544 seconds
Root dispersion : 0.000631 seconds
Update interval : 2.0 seconds
Leap status : Normal
Setting the Time for a Windows Instance
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsGuide/windows-set-time.html
