Windows XP time sync preference list in an AD environment

[ed]

Hi,

Does doing a net time command confirm which DC is selected to provide time
information back to a client?

According to this article, if there is no change in DC availability, you
should get consistent results when you do a net time in a W2003 AD
environment. In our case this is not true.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...v/2003/all/techref/en-us/w2k3tr_times_how.asp

Page 9 talks about score determination, however I am not certain this
applies to clients or just DC's. The reason is I have only 1 DC which is
"reliable" other then the default PDC emulator yet different DC's respond to
the net time command.

Are there any easy tools to confirm which DC's have their registry key set
to 1 for "reliabletimesource"

Thanks in advance,

Ed

 

[ptwilliams]

Does doing a net time command confirm which DC is selected to provide time

information back to a client?

No.

I didn't read all of your post, but I can tell you that net time does not
accurately tell you which server you are synchronising with. w32tm /once
will give you a more accurate picture.


--

Paul Williams

http://www.msresource.net
http://forums.msresource.net
______________________________________
Hi,

Does doing a net time command confirm which DC is selected to provide time
information back to a client?

According to this article, if there is no change in DC availability, you
should get consistent results when you do a net time in a W2003 AD
environment. In our case this is not true.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...v/2003/all/techref/en-us/w2k3tr_times_how.asp

Page 9 talks about score determination, however I am not certain this
applies to clients or just DC's. The reason is I have only 1 DC which is
"reliable" other then the default PDC emulator yet different DC's respond to
the net time command.

Are there any easy tools to confirm which DC's have their registry key set
to 1 for "reliabletimesource"

Thanks in advance,

Ed

 

[ed]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the info - I am aware of the w32tm, but in XP Professional at
least it never accepts the /once qualifier. Any ideas why?

Below is a print out of the help from my workstation (I tried from several
also)

C:\WINDOWS\system32>w32tm /?
w32tm [/? | /register | /unregister ]
? - this help screen.
register - register to run as a service and add default
configuration to the registry.
unregister - unregister service and remove all configuration
information from the registry.

w32tm /monitor [/domain:<domain name>]
[/computers:<name>[,<name>[,<name>...]]]
[/threads:<num>]
domain - specifies which domain to monitor. If no domain name
is given, or neither the domain nor computers option is
specified, the default domain is used. This option may be
used more than once.
computers - monitors the given list of computers. Computer
names are separated by commas, with no spaces. If a name is
prefixed with a '*', it is treated as a PDC. This option
may be used more than once.
threads - how many computers to analyze simultaneously. The
default value is 3. Allowed range is 1-50.

w32tm /ntte <NT time epoch>
Convert a NT system time, in (10^-7)s intervals from 0h 1-Jan 1601,
into a readable format.

w32tm /ntpte <NTP time epoch>
Convert an NTP time, in (2^-32)s intervals from 0h 1-Jan 1900, into
a readable format.

w32tm /resync [/computer:<computer>] [/nowait] [/rediscover] [/soft]
Tell a computer that it should resynchronize its clock as soon
as possible, throwing out all accumulated error statistics.
computer:<computer> - computer that should resync. If not
specified, the local computer will resync.
nowait - do not wait for the resync to occur;
return immediately. Otherwise, wait for the resync to
complete before returning.
rediscover - redetect the network configuration and rediscover
network sources, then resynchronize.
soft - resync utilizing existing error statistics. Not useful,
provided for compatibility.

w32tm /stripchart /computer:<target> [/period:<refresh>]
[/dataonly] [/samples:<count>]
Display a strip chart of the offset between this computer and
another computer.
computer:<target> - the computer to measure the offset against.
period:<refresh> - the time between samples, in seconds. The
default is 2s
dataonly - display only the data, no graphics.
samples:<count> - collect <count> samples, then stop. If not
specified, samples will be collected until Ctrl-C is pressed.

w32tm /config [/computer:<target>] [/update]
[/manualpeerlist:<peers>] [/syncfromflags:<source>]
[/LocalClockDispersion:<seconds>]
computer:<target> - adjusts the configuration of <target>. If not
specified, the default is the local computer.
update - notifies the time service that the configuration has
changed, causing the changes to take effect.
manualpeerlist:<peers> - sets the manual peer list to <peers>,
which is a space-delimited list of DNS and/or IP addresses.
When specifying multiple peers, this switch must be enclosed in
quotes.
syncfromflags:<source> - sets what sources the NTP client should
sync from. <source> should be a comma separated list of
these keywords (not case sensitive):
MANUAL - include peers from the manual peer list
DOMHIER - sync from a DC in the domain hierarchy

w32tm /tz
Display the current time zone settings.

w32tm /dumpreg [/subkey:<key>] [/computer:<target>]
Display the values associated with a given registry key.
The default key is HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time
(the root key for the time service).
subkey:<key> - displays the values associated with subkey <key> of the
defa
key.
computer:<target> - queries registry settings for computer <target>

Ed