# NTP & VPN issues
**URL:** https://dietpi.com/forum/t/ntp-vpn-issues/15234
**Category:** Troubleshooting
**Created:** [13 December 2022 11:51 UTC](https://dietpi.com/forum/t/ntp-vpn-issues/15234 "2022-12-13T11:51:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@begbie](https://dietpi.com/forum/u/begbie)
#### Post date: [13 December 2022 11:51 UTC](https://dietpi.com/forum/t/ntp-vpn-issues/15234/1 "2022-12-13T11:51:11Z")
TLDR: Seems running a VPN client doesn’t allow NTP to be updated.
I noticed the other day that my homeassistant wasn’t triggering the schedules when they should have done, so did some head scratching and noticed that my Dietpi was out of sync on time by a couple of hours so went into the dietpi-config option to check the NTP settings and they all seemed to be okay, but when I tried to connecting to any of them, they all timeout after the 10 tries so thought that was odd.
Transpires that when you are connected to VPN that NTP isn’t updated, because as soon as I disconnected from the VPN I could contact all the NTP servers without issue.
VPN provider is NordVPN.
Just wondering if anyone has had similar issues and what they did to over come it?
---
### Author:  [@Joulinar](https://dietpi.com/forum/u/Joulinar)
#### Post date: [13 December 2022 12:41 UTC](https://dietpi.com/forum/t/ntp-vpn-issues/15234/2 "2022-12-13T12:41:37Z")
What NTP server you have configured?
---
### Author:  [@begbie](https://dietpi.com/forum/u/begbie)
#### Post date: [13 December 2022 13:07 UTC](https://dietpi.com/forum/t/ntp-vpn-issues/15234/3 "2022-12-13T13:07:44Z")
I was originally on the default one of [debian.pool.ntp.org](http://debian.pool.ntp.org), but when I disconnected from the VPN I changed it to [europe.pool.ntp.org](http://europe.pool.ntp.org) which updated fine, but as soon as I connected back to the VPN it went back timing out.
I have also tried enabling the NTP service on my router and then choose the gateway from dietpi-config, but this also times out. I have also tried using custom and to point it to my routers IP but still no joy on that unfortunately
---
### Author:  [@Joulinar](https://dietpi.com/forum/u/Joulinar)
#### Post date: [13 December 2022 13:19 UTC](https://dietpi.com/forum/t/ntp-vpn-issues/15234/4 "2022-12-13T13:19:53Z")
> [@begbie](#):
>
> I have also tried enabling the NTP service on my router and then choose the gateway from dietpi-config, but this also times out. I have also tried using custom and to point it to my routers IP but still no joy on that unfortunately
this is not going to work as long as you are connected to a VPN server, because your entire traffic is routed thru VPN tunnel. Means you can’t choose a local NTP server. It would need to be a public one, reachable from internet. What DNS server you have set? Local one or a global upstream DNS? Maybe your system is not able to resolve DNS queries?? Did you tried to ping a NTP server while connected via VPN?
```auto
ping europe.pool.ntp.org
```
found an older reddit post for your issue [https://www.reddit.com/r/nordvpn/comments/9agjri/why\_is\_nordvpn\_blocking\_ntp\_protocol\_i\_cannot/](https://www.reddit.com/r/nordvpn/comments/9agjri/why_is_nordvpn_blocking_ntp_protocol_i_cannot/)
---
### Author:  [@begbie](https://dietpi.com/forum/u/begbie)
#### Post date: [13 December 2022 13:25 UTC](https://dietpi.com/forum/t/ntp-vpn-issues/15234/5 "2022-12-13T13:25:10Z")
That’s what I thought about the traffic, but didn’t know if there was a local route it could break out to that 🤷♂️
DNS server is set locally as using Pihole as DNS, then 1.1.1.1 as fail back DNS.
Pinging [europe.pool.ntp.org](http://europe.pool.ntp.org) whilst connected to VPN returns an answer:
PING [europe.pool.ntp.org](http://europe.pool.ntp.org) (62.12.167.109) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from [dns.3eck.net](http://dns.3eck.net) (62.12.167.109): icmp\_seq=1 ttl=53 time=23.2 ms
64 bytes from [dns.3eck.net](http://dns.3eck.net) (62.12.167.109): icmp\_seq=2 ttl=53 time=23.1 ms
64 bytes from [dns.3eck.net](http://dns.3eck.net) (62.12.167.109): icmp\_seq=3 ttl=53 time=22.9 ms
Always appreciate your help & suggestions Joulinar 🙂
---
### Author:  [@Joulinar](https://dietpi.com/forum/u/Joulinar)
#### Post date: [13 December 2022 13:31 UTC](https://dietpi.com/forum/t/ntp-vpn-issues/15234/6 "2022-12-13T13:31:58Z")
ok connection is fine, and NTP server reachable. In this case it might be with NordVPN blocking NTP request or at least they are not going thru.
Theoretically you could verify the available of an NTP server as follow
```auto
apt install ntpdate -y #to install required ntpdate tool
ntpdate -q europe.pool.ntp.org
```
---
### Author:  [@begbie](https://dietpi.com/forum/u/begbie)
#### Post date: [13 December 2022 13:43 UTC](https://dietpi.com/forum/t/ntp-vpn-issues/15234/7 "2022-12-13T13:43:27Z")
Added the ntpdate and ran the command you suggested and the result is:
```auto
root@DietPi:~# ntpdate -q europe.pool.ntp.org
13 Dec 13:42:32 ntpdate[136468]: no server suitable for synchronization found
```
---
### Author:  [@Joulinar](https://dietpi.com/forum/u/Joulinar)
#### Post date: [13 December 2022 13:56 UTC](https://dietpi.com/forum/t/ntp-vpn-issues/15234/8 "2022-12-13T13:56:31Z")
Yeah NTP request are not passing the VPN tunnel. Maybe you could ask NordVPN for support.
---
### Author:  [@begbie](https://dietpi.com/forum/u/begbie)
#### Post date: [13 December 2022 14:08 UTC](https://dietpi.com/forum/t/ntp-vpn-issues/15234/9 "2022-12-13T14:08:28Z")
Thanks again @Joulinar .
Already in the process of contacting them to see if they can help. If they do, I will post up what can be done in case someone else stumbles across this 🙂