On a Linux system, you would periodically call hwclock –systohc. Often this is called during shutdown/reboot as well.

Not sure if there is a FreeBSD equivalent.

When ntpd starts up, it reads settings from its configuration file, typically ntpd.conf(5), and its initial clock drift from /var/db/ntpd.drift. Clock drift is periodically written to the drift file thereafter.

Its now more than 17 hours since I restarted ntpd and there is no file matching '*.drift' anywhere in the file system.

I had configured pfSense to look to my ADSL modem as the ntp server. I don't know why I had done that, I now can't find any evidence it is capable of playing that role. ntpd didn't report any problem with this over at least ten days of uptime.

The OpenBSD ntpd man page says:

When ntpd receives a SIGINFO signal, it writes its peer and sensor status
    to syslog(3).

I found two ntpd processes. I sent SIGINFO to both and even 30 minutes later there was no evidence of ntpd writing its peer and sensor status to syslog.

Though ntpd is running, it doesn't appear to be doing what it should do.

I'm running 1.2.1-RC1 built on Sat Oct 11 09:05:22 EDT 2008

I am leaving my box here alone for the time being and will watch to see what happens. Today Im just over a second off.

I do believe that this is something that would be about the 1.2 line in general unless the way ntpd is implemented has changed between release and 1.2.1

I probably should have started this topic in the General forum.

I am just having trouble seeing that any update to the pfsense box takes place after initial boot.

At least Im learning a lot!

Found this..  http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/network-ntp.html

"If you only wish to synchronize your clock when the machine boots up, you can use ntpdate(8). This may be appropriate for some desktop machines which are frequently rebooted and only require infrequent synchronization, but most machines should run ntpd(8).

Using ntpdate(8) at boot time is also a good idea for machines that run ntpd(8). The ntpd(8) program changes the clock gradually, whereas ntpdate(8) sets the clock, no matter how great the difference between a machine's current clock setting and the correct time."

Im still learning my way around Free BSD so please patient.  Are both ntpdate and ntpd used here? I only see the one log entry for ntpdate.

What rate is the firewall supposed to look for updates?

I had the log entry but my laptop battery went dead too quick

How often is the time service supposed to go out and look for an update to its time?

I just restarted with the latest update and got

Oct 16 07:06:09 ntpdate[325]: step time server 207.46.197.32 offset -1.569880 sec

It appears it only looks once when its restarted by both whats in the log and the offset that is rather large after several days of no restarts…

I had the same impression, shouldn't NTP being adjusting the time every moment, keeping a DRIFT file, and such ?

I've put ntpdate into crontab and sync system clock as scheduled just fine.

Cheers,