I think I'm seeing an ordering problem in that ntp won't set the system clock on boot because: 1) Yast stores the time server's name and not its IP address in /etc/ntp.conf 2) My system gets its IP via dhcpd 3) ntp fails to resolve the IP address via DNS for the ntp server named in /etc/ntp.conf because ... 4) dhcpd does not modify /etc/resolv.conf until *after* /etc/init.d/ntp is run FWIW: I've eth0 controlled by ifplugd. I believe that this is demonstrated by doing: egrep -i 'dhcp|ntp' /var/log/messages which yields the following: --- Nov 3 15:20:20 tornado ntpdate[5292]: can't find host louie.udel.edu Nov 3 15:20:20 tornado ntpdate[5292]: no servers can be used, exiting Nov 3 15:20:20 tornado ntpd[5365]: ntpd 4.2.0a@1.1191-r Fri Sep 9 17:17:17 UTC 2005 (1) Nov 3 15:20:21 tornado ntpd[5365]: precision = 3.000 usec Nov 3 15:20:21 tornado ntpd[5365]: Listening on interface wildcard, 0.0.0.0#123 Nov 3 15:20:21 tornado ntpd[5365]: Listening on interface wildcard, ::#123 Nov 3 15:20:21 tornado ntpd[5365]: Listening on interface lo, 127.0.0.1#123 Nov 3 15:20:21 tornado ntpd[5365]: kernel time sync status 0040 Nov 3 15:20:21 tornado ntpd[5365]: frequency initialized -1.291 PPM from /var/lib/ntp/drift/ntp.drift Nov 3 15:20:25 tornado modify_resolvconf: Service dhcpcd modified /etc/resolv.conf. See info block in this file --- showing /etc/resolv.conf being modified *after* ntp runs.