Time synchronization
Initiative supporters & funders
Past initiative supporters & funders
Reliable, securely synchronized time is a building block for the Internet and other critical infrastructure.
This initiative provides modern, memory-safe implementations of the Network Time Protocol and Precision Time Protocol and creates open services that boost secure time synchronization.
What We've Done
Our Network Time Protocol implementation, ntpd-rs, is stable. It is packaged for, for example, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu and deployed at Let's Encrypt.
In 2025, we started work on a pool management system for NTS servers to facilitate the adoption of Network Time Security (NTS). This project completes in early 2027, see the NTS Pool project page.
In July of 2026, work started to prepare ntpd-rs to become the default time synchronization utility on Ubuntu.
Roadmap
Blog and news
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Ubuntu to adopt ntpd-rs as the default time synchronization client and server
March 26, 2026 – Ubuntu is set to adopt ntpd-rs by default. We're thrilled to announce that in upcoming releases, Ubuntu will be adopting ntpd-rs as the default time synchronization client and server.
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Video: Securing time with NTS (FOSDEM26)
The Network Time Protocol is generally used completely unprotected, much like the web was before HTTPS. Ruben explains how we aim to push adoption of secure time (NTS) using pools of NTS servers.
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ntpd-rs now supports version 5 of the Network Time Protocol
Our Network Time Protocol implementation, ntpd-rs, now provides experimental support of NTP version 5. It is available in the latest release.
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Enabling pools in NTS
We previously talked about how secure time is required for a safe internet. We mentioned how we want to increase the adoption of NTS, the secure time synchronization standard built on top of NTP. For this, we proposed to develop a public NTS pool. In this article, we expand on what pooling is, and what is required to enable an NTS pool.
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ISPCS paper: Estimating noise for clock-synchronizing Kalman filters
Our Statime project now provides strong synchronization performance and accurate synchronization error estimates. David's paper, soon to be published by the IEEE, describes our Kalman-based approach.
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More Memory Safety for Let’s Encrypt: Deploying ntpd-rs
When we look at the general security posture of Let’s Encrypt, one of the things that worries us most is how much of the operating system and network infrastructure is written in unsafe languages like C and C++.
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A safe Internet requires secure time
The internet has a hole at the bottom of its trust stack, and we need to do something about it. In particular, the internet needs secure time synchronization to fortify the security of our digital world.
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Providing official Fedora Linux RPM packages for ntpd-rs and sudo-rs
Memory safe NTP and sudo are now in Fedora Linux.
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Sovereign Tech Fund invests in Pendulum
Sovereign Tech Fund will support our effort to build modern and memory-safe implementations of the Network Time Protocol (NTP) and the Precision Time Protocol (PTP).
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