ntpdate is a computer program used to quickly synchronize and set computers' date and time by querying a Network Time Protocol (NTP) server.
It is available for a wide variety of unix-like operating systems.
[1] The accuracy and reliability of ntpdate entirely depends on the accuracy and network link stability of the first server it connects with.
As this inaccuracy can lead to a multitude of problems, the maintainers have decided to deprecate it in favor of only using the ntpd (network time protocol daemon) or a sntp (simple network time protocol) query.
[2] This computer-programming-related article is a stub.