Problem synchronizing server time with ntpd

Many distributions these days are configuring ntpd to restrict access. If restrict lines are present in your server's /etc/ntp.conf, only hosts/networks matching those lines will be permitted to connect to ntpd. You probably need to add additional restrict lines for the hosts or networks you want to allow to sync to your server. For example, to let the client you mentioned sync, add one of the following lines:

# allow just this host
restrict 10.99.84.134 nomodify notrap

# or allow the whole /24 segment
restrict 10.99.84.0 mask 255.255.255.0 nomodify notrap

After that, restart ntpd, and your clients should be able to sync.

The problem was that the server itself was not able to synchronize with it's upstream server. the solution was to change the server configuration like this:

re-enabled the Debian pool servers instead of my single hard coded server.

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

I added a local clock reference, this makes the server appear synchronized to clients even when it's not, which is the desired behavior for my setup.

server 127.127.1.0
fudge 127.127.1.0 stratum 10

Once I made those changes, the server managed to synchronize itself and then the clients managed to sync with the server.

You can also say there's some sort of connectivity problem because the "reach" is still 0.

Turn off ntp for a moment, and try running ntpdate to sync it once:

ntpdate 10.99.84.134

If that fails, you definitely have a connectivity problem:

1. verify that the two machines can talk to each other via ICMP (ping)
2. if they can, verify that there's not a firewall setting on 10.99.84.134 preventing the connection to ntp

3. If there's no firewall problems, verify on 10.99.84.134 that ntp is listening

   netstat -tapn | grep 123