Synchronizing Time on My Local Network

[W. Watson]

I have two Win machines and a Linux machine on a network. The Linux machine needs
some fairly accurate time. It runs 7/24 but has no access to the internet. I'm on the
Win XP machine every day, and would like to use it as a time source. How can I get
the time synched on the local net through it at least once a day?

I've noticed the clock on my XP machine is a lot more accurate than on the Linux
machine. Is there some sort of XP time synching going on that I'm not aware of?
--
Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet
(Formerly Homo habilis, erectus, heidelbergensis and now sapiens)

"I'm not going to die. It would ruin my image."
-- Jack La Lanne, 90 year old early TV health
& exercise promoter

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>

 

[XPUSER]

I have two Win machines and a Linux machine on a network. The Linux machine needs
some fairly accurate time. It runs 7/24 but has no access to the internet. I'm on the
Win XP machine every day, and would like to use it as a time source. How can I get
the time synched on the local net through it at least once a day?

I've noticed the clock on my XP machine is a lot more accurate than on the Linux
machine. Is there some sort of XP time synching going on that I'm not aware of?
--
Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet
(Formerly Homo habilis, erectus, heidelbergensis and now sapiens)

"I'm not going to die. It would ruin my image."
-- Jack La Lanne, 90 year old early TV health
& exercise promoter

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>

=====================================
Maybe this will work for your Linux box too.

http://thepcyoubuy.com/XPtime.htm

http://windows.about.com/library/tips/bltip214.htm
=====================================

 

[W. Watson]

=====================================
Maybe this will work for your Linux box too.

http://thepcyoubuy.com/XPtime.htm

http://windows.about.com/library/tips/bltip214.htm
=====================================

Thanks. I wonder if that will synch everything on my local network. I suspect not.

--
Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet
(Formerly Homo habilis, erectus, heidelbergensis and now sapiens)

"I'm not going to die. It would ruin my image."
-- Jack La Lanne, 90 year old early TV health
& exercise promoter

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>

 

[W. Watson]

I have two Win machines and a Linux machine on a network. The Linux
machine needs some fairly accurate time. It runs 7/24 but has no access
to the internet. I'm on the Win XP machine every day, and would like to
use it as a time source. How can I get the time synched on the local net
through it at least once a day?

I've noticed the clock on my XP machine is a lot more accurate than on
the Linux machine. Is there some sort of XP time synching going on that
I'm not aware of?

I just discovered two descriptions of how to set the clocks via accurate time using
the present NTP on XP. Which one is correct?

1. <http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/1117/>.
2. <http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314054#EXTERNAL>. Click
the second line under INTRO... for external setting.

This was perhaps an easy question. I suspect 2 is the wiser choice, since 1 can set
the refresh time. The complexity of 2 suggests that someone should have written a
program to do the steps.

--
Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet
(Formerly Homo habilis, erectus, heidelbergensis and now sapiens)

"I'm not going to die. It would ruin my image."
-- Jack La Lanne, 90 year old early TV health
& exercise promoter

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>

 

[Sooner Al]

You also might try this small program that can act as a time server for a network. I have used it on
Windows Me machines in the past for just this purpose.

http://vps.arachnoid.com/abouttime/

Note that I have not run this on a XP box...so, as always, YMMV...

Otherwise look at this page for alternatives...

http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/general/softwarelist.htm

Personally, I could never get my XP Pro box to actually act as a NTP time server as noted in your
two links...

--
Al Jarvi (MS-MVP Windows Networking)

Please post *ALL* questions and replies to the news group for the mutual benefit of all of us...
The MS-MVP Program - http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights...

 

[Malke]

You also might try this small program that can act as a time server
for a network. I have used it on Windows Me machines in the past for
just this purpose.

http://vps.arachnoid.com/abouttime/

Note that I have not run this on a XP box...so, as always, YMMV...

Otherwise look at this page for alternatives...

http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/general/softwarelist.htm

Personally, I could never get my XP Pro box to actually act as a NTP
time server as noted in your two links...

Mr. Watson - man ntp. If you want your Windows box to act as the
timeserver, tell the Linux box to use Windows as the timeserver. You
can also tell Windows what timeserver to use. In any case, set one of
the machines to synchronize with an outside public timeserver and the
other one to synchronize from the internal timeserver.

Look at /etc/ntp.conf.

Malke

 

[W. Watson]

Sooner Al wrote:



Mr. Watson - man ntp. If you want your Windows box to act as the
timeserver, tell the Linux box to use Windows as the timeserver. You
can also tell Windows what timeserver to use. In any case, set one of
the machines to synchronize with an outside public timeserver and the
other one to synchronize from the internal timeserver.

Look at /etc/ntp.conf.

Malke

Thanks. I'll take a look; however, your comment about "never get XP Pro..." is a
little disconcerting.

With a little more exploration, I came across
<http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...2003/all/techref/en-us/w2k3tr_times_tools.asp>.
It has some time tools, but at the moment it baffles me why instead of the 9 complex
steps outlined in item 2. above, some of the tools at this site couldn't be used to
set up Win XP as a time server. For example:

W32tm /register Registers the time service to run as a service and adds default
configuration to the registry.
W32tm /unregister Unregisters the time service and removes all configuration
information from the registry.

See the commands described at the top of the page cited. One would think MS would
supply some program to do all this. It's sort of like applying a patch for removing a
virus. Maybe reading W32tm /? will help.
--
Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet
(Formerly Homo habilis, erectus, heidelbergensis and now sapiens)

"I'm not going to die. It would ruin my image."
-- Jack La Lanne, 90 year old early TV health
& exercise promoter

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>

 

[Malke]

Thanks. I'll take a look; however, your comment about "never get XP
Pro..." is a little disconcerting.

With a little more exploration, I came across
<http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation
/WindowsServ/2003/all/techref/en-us/Default.asp?url=/Resources/
Documentation/windowsserv/2003/all/techref/en-us/w2k3tr_times_tools.asp>.
It has some time tools, but at the moment it baffles me why instead of
the 9 complex steps outlined in item 2. above, some of the tools at
this site couldn't be used to set up Win XP as a time server. For
example:

W32tm /register Registers the time service to run as a service and
adds default configuration to the registry.
W32tm /unregister Unregisters the time service and removes all
configuration information from the registry.

See the commands described at the top of the page cited. One would
think MS would supply some program to do all this. It's sort of like
applying a patch for removing a virus. Maybe reading W32tm /? will
help.

My comment about "never get XP Pro"? I never said anything like that. I
have 4 XP Pro boxen running here. I think your posting style has
confused who said what.

If you don't want to deal with setting up a timeserver on the Windows
end, then do as I suggested and set your Linux box to get the time from
an external source. You will need to have the ntp service running, of
course. As I said, man ntp.

Malke

 

[W. Watson]

W. Watson wrote:




My comment about "never get XP Pro"? I never said anything like that. I
have 4 XP Pro boxen running here. I think your posting style has
confused who said what.

If you don't want to deal with setting up a timeserver on the Windows
end, then do as I suggested and set your Linux box to get the time from
an external source. You will need to have the ntp service running, of
course. As I said, man ntp.

Malke

Pardon me. It was the fellow who responded just before you. Yes, I'm proceeding on
the path of getting the Win XP machine to fire up NTP and time synch the local
network off of it several times a day. When I get that squared away, I'll get Linux
into the picture. Nevertheless, the win32tp operation seems a little bizarre, as I
mentioned above.

--
Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet
(Formerly Homo habilis, erectus, heidelbergensis and now sapiens)

"I'm not going to die. It would ruin my image."
-- Jack La Lanne, 90 year old early TV health
& exercise promoter

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>

 

[Malke]

Pardon me. It was the fellow who responded just before you. Yes, I'm
proceeding on the path of getting the Win XP machine to fire up NTP
and time synch the local network off of it several times a day. When I
get that squared away, I'll get Linux into the picture. Nevertheless,
the win32tp operation seems a little bizarre, as I mentioned above.

Doesn't seem strange to me, but whatever. You might consider snipping
your sig - it's a bit long for Usenet.

Whatever machine you use, make sure you use the right level time server
and pick a few in your area of the country. Here are a few links that
might be helpful:

http://ntp.isc.org/bin/view/Servers/WebHome
http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/service/time-servers.html

Malke

 

[Sooner Al]

You quoted me wrong... I said...

"Personally, I could never get my XP Pro box to actually act as a NTP time server..."

....not...

"...never get XP Pro..."

--
Al Jarvi (MS-MVP Windows Networking)

Please post *ALL* questions and replies to the news group for the mutual benefit of all of us...
The MS-MVP Program - http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights...