7. I'm trying to use NTPD to update my Linux machine's time to a specified NTP server. Here is the scenario: Each time the Linux machine starts up, I want to update the time from NTP server and if it's not successful, I want to try again every 5 minutes until successfully (max is 2 hours).t decides how often to ask a server for current time, and how often and how much to change the local clock, based on how the local clock drifts: you can't really control any of the intervals. ntpd runs in the background. To change an NTP server, you edit /etc/ntp.conf, and stop then start ntpd.