How to synch time between ubuntu laptops in a local network

Question

I'd like to synch time on all my laptops inside my local network which use a router but it has no access to public internet so I can't use remote time servers.

I would like to use a laptop to act like a NTP server and make all the other laptops to synch to this NTP server.

I'm trying to use ntp and my ntp.conf file is this one:

# /etc/ntp.conf, file di configurazione for ntpd

# File nel quale scrivere la frequenza di scostamento dal clock di sistema.
driftfile /var/lib/ntp/ntp.drift

# Statistiche
statsdir /var/log/ntpstats/
statistics loopstats peerstats clockstats
filegen loopstats file loopstats type day enable
filegen peerstats file peerstats type day enable
filegen clockstats file clockstats type day enable

#server 2.it.pool.ntp.org iburst
#server 1.europe.pool.ntp.org iburst
#server 3.europe.pool.ntp.org iburst

server 192.168.1.11 #my NTP server IP address

# È permesso "dialogare" con chiunque (via ipv4 e via ipv6) ma non sono autorizzate configurazioni
restrict -4 default kod notrap nomodify nopeer noquery
restrict -6 default kod notrap nomodify nopeer noquery

# Utenti locali
restrict 127.0.0.1
restrict ::1

but when I run ntpq -p on the NTP server laptop it seems it isn't working:

 sudo ntpq -p
     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter
==============================================================================
 Evangelion01    .INIT.          16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000   0.000

Can you help me, please? I tried to solve this problem for the whole day by looking on google, but I found nothing useful, unfortunately.

Thank you

Answer 1

This seem to work. The example uses a C-Network on 192.168.x.x the server being 192.168.0.11

You create the following files /etc/npt.conf

1. on the server

   driftfile /var/lib/ntp/ntp.drift
   server 127.127.0.1    
   fudge  127.127.0.1  stratum 2
   

2. on all others

   driftfile /var/lib/ntp/ntp.drift
   server 192.168.0.11    
   fudge  127.127.0.1 stratum 3
   

Then restart the service with

 sudo service ntp restart

You set the time on the server only with sudo date --date="15:30 01 jan 2020"

for me that worked fine. A new client needs a few minutes to pick up the time.