diff --git a/ncm-ntpd/src/main/pan/components/ntpd/schema.pan b/ncm-ntpd/src/main/pan/components/ntpd/schema.pan
index 8c898cdaea..7e64689fad 100644
--- a/ncm-ntpd/src/main/pan/components/ntpd/schema.pan
+++ b/ncm-ntpd/src/main/pan/components/ntpd/schema.pan
@@ -101,7 +101,13 @@ type ntpd_system_options = {
 }
 type ntpd_interface_options = {
     "action" : choice("listen", "ignore", "drop")
-    "match" : string
+    "match" : string_trimmed with {
+        match(SELF, '^(all|ipv4|ipv6|wildcard)$')
+        || is_ip(SELF)
+        || is_ipv4_netmask_pair(SELF)
+        || is_ipv6_network_block(SELF)
+        || path_exists(format('/system/network/interfaces/%s', SELF));
+    }
 };
 
 # logging configuration
@@ -110,15 +116,11 @@ function valid_ntpd_logconfig_list = {
     foreach (idx; configkeyword; ARGV[0]) {
         # all keywords can be prefixed with +-=
         if (!match(configkeyword, '^(\=|\-|\+)\w+')) {
-            error("invalid logconfig value "
-                + to_string(ARGV[0])
-                + " all configkeywords must precede by +,-, or =");
+            error("invalid logconfig value %s all configkeywords must precede by +,-, or =", ARGV[0]);
         };
         configkeyword = substr("configkeyword", 1);
         if (!match(configkeyword, '^(all)?(clock|peer|sys|sync)?(status|events|statistics)?')) {
-            error("invalid logconfig value "
-                + to_string(ARGV[0])
-                + " failed to match regex '" + match_logkw + "'");
+            error("invalid logconfig value %s failed to match regex '%s'", ARGV[0], match_logkw);
         };
     };
     true;
diff --git a/ncm-ntpd/src/test/resources/interface.pan b/ncm-ntpd/src/test/resources/interface.pan
index 0ff407e628..4daee097e3 100644
--- a/ncm-ntpd/src/test/resources/interface.pan
+++ b/ncm-ntpd/src/test/resources/interface.pan
@@ -2,6 +2,8 @@ object template interface;
 
 include 'only_timeservers_base';
 
+'/system/network/interfaces/eth0' = dict();
+
 prefix "/software/components/ntpd";
 
 'interface' = append(dict('action', 'listen', 'match', 'eth0'));