Time Setup

Introduction

The Jetson has no RTC (Real-Time-Clock) onboard, so every time it reboots it sets it's date to 2018. This causes quite a few problems with ROS, so we use chrony to fix it.

Setting up a Time Master

The Time Master computer must be connected to the network for the Jetson to get it's time updated. It can just be a laptop. There can be multiple Time Masters as well.

Run this command to install Chrony on the master computer: sudo apt install chrony

Add these two lines to the bottom of the chrony.conf file by running sudo nano /etc/chrony/chrony.conf:

allow 192.168/16
local stratum 10

The stratum determines the "priority" of the master time server. Lower means higher priority, so a high value of 10 means we will only use this server if there is nothing better available.

Setting up a Client (the Jetson)

Install the required software: sudo apt install chrony

For each Master server, add a line to the bottom of the chrony.conf file by running sudo nano /etc/chrony/chrony.conf:

server 192.168.1.80 iburst minpoll 0 maxpoll 5 maxdelay 3

Change the IP address to the static IP of the Time Master on the network.

Test it out

Reboot the Time Master, then once it's running reboot the Jetson. Run date on the Jetson to make sure it's correct.