[CentOS] ntp will not drift to correct time

Wed Aug 12 16:16:04 UTC 2009
Tom Brown <tom at ng23.net>

> Is the directory /var/lib/ntp present, and with write permissions for
> the 'ntp' user?  Does the drift file exist?
> Does ntpd ever lock in?  What do you see in 'ntpq -p' over time?
> Are these heavily-loaded boxes, or boxes with wildly-varying loads?
>
>   

$ ll /var/lib/ntp
total 4
-rw-r--r-- 1 ntp ntp 7 Aug 12 15:17 drift

$ cat /var/lib/ntp/drift
11.395

# ntpq -p
     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  
jitter
==============================================================================
+server01 some.ip      3 u   81 1024  377    0.455    1.174   0.199
*server02 some.ip      3 u  850 1024  377    0.420    2.109   0.212

What do you mean by 'Does ntpd ever lock in?' ? These boxes are idle 
pretty much.

thanks