2 ntpd & process running

Select the one you want to kill and click the small button with a 'X' on it on the top left.

I suggest you reboot and see whether this was a one-time problem. If not, use Console.app to root around in the log for some clue as to what caused launchd to launch the second instance of the process.

Something seems to be using a lot of CPU - you may want to see what that is, just in case it is connected.

C.

What messages from ntpd appear in the system logs around the time it spawns the child process?

C.

On my client Mac running Yosemite I just get one ntpd process which I would presume is acting as the ntp client.

On my server also running Yosemite I have two ntpd processes, one I would again presume is acting as an ntp client to a major ntp server on the Internet, the other is acting as my internal ntpd server. This is what I would expect to happen on my server.

macfrombrampton wrote:

John Lockwood, I am not running a server but a Yosemite workstation. How are you differentiating the serer from client?

The NTP software is part of OS X itself, it is not necessary to have Server.app I was referring to making that NTP software accept connections from other computers i.e. ordinary Macs which is not enabled as standard. To do this is merely a matter of editing the /etc/ntp-restrict.conf and/or /etc/ntp.conf files.

The NTP software will only accept connections from clients if you have both made any necessary changes to the above file(s) and it itself can contact another NTP server. If you are using Server.app and the server is acting as an Open Directory master then any Open Directory replica servers are automatically configured to sync their clocks to the Open Directory master. Client Macs are not automatically set to sync to the Open Directory servers.

So in my case I added a special entry to 'trick' the NTP software in accepting itself as the 'other' NTP server if no external better server is available, and I have configured all my Macs to use it as the internal server. (Actually still finishing the later.)