Title

The ntpdate service must not be running. (Cat III impact)

Discussion

The "ntpdate" service may only be suitable for systems which are rebooted frequently enough that clock drift does not cause problems between reboots. In any event, the functionality of the ntpdate service is now available in the ntpd program and should be considered deprecated.

Check Content

To check that the "ntpdate" service is disabled in system boot configuration, run the following command: # chkconfig "ntpdate" --list Output should indicate the "ntpdate" service has either not been installed, or has been disabled at all runlevels, as shown in the example below: # chkconfig "ntpdate" --list "ntpdate" 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:off 4:off 5:off 6:off Run the following command to verify "ntpdate" is disabled through current runtime configuration: # service ntpdate status If the service is disabled the command will return the following output: ntpdate is stopped If the service is running, this is a finding.

Fix Text

The ntpdate service sets the local hardware clock by polling NTP servers when the system boots. It synchronizes to the NTP servers listed in "/etc/ntp/step-tickers" or "/etc/ntp.conf" and then sets the local hardware clock to the newly synchronized system time. The "ntpdate" service can be disabled with the following commands: # chkconfig ntpdate off # service ntpdate stop

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-218017r603264_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-218017

Group Title: SRG-OS-000096

Expert Comments

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