Sometimes you just want to query a remote ntp server (and maybe see the difference between the two clocks). In this case you can use the tool sntp. From the sntp man page: The default is to write the estimated correct local date and time (i.e. not UTC) to the standard output…. use something like: $ sntp at.pool.ntp.org 2018-04-19 11:36:26.538479 (-0100) -0.004752 +/- 0.023788 at.pool.ntp.org 86.59.28.10 s2 no-leap