[ntp:questions] Time sync on a windows domain
Richard B. Gilbert
rgilbert88 at comcast.net
Thu May 24 14:30:41 UTC 2007
clarkec8 at hotmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm investigating different methods of keeping a network in time. We
> currently have a network with 6000 XP clients, 200 2003 servers and
> about 20 Solaris/Unix servers.
>
> We currently use ntpdate on the unix servers and w32time on the
> windows server with the PDC going to the internet for time via NTP.
>
> Our current time difference accross the network is about 2 seconds.
> This seems a lot to me. We've also go some 2003 servers that swing
> around all over (around 4 mins). These are pre SP1 though and I
> believe there were some fixes in SP1.
>
> I would like to get a GPS NTP device and sync to that and I'd like
> some advice.
>
> 1. If I use the PDC to point to the NTP device and use the domain
> heirarchy what sort of accuracy can I expect?
Good enough for Kerberos which, I believe, means a spread of not more
than five minutes! It should usually be better than that but it's not
guaranteed since Kerberos is the ONLY reason that Windows cares what
time it is. See the White Paper by Brandolini and Green entitled "The
Windows Time Service" Google for the title and/or authors and you
should find a copy on the Web somewhere.
>
> 2. If I still use w32time but set it to NTP and point all clients at
> the clock device what accuracy could I expect?
See above. Windows was simply not designed for timekeeping.
Timekeeping, especially accurate timekeeping was very much an afterthought!
>
> 3. Should I use something else entirely and ignore w32time?
>
If you really want TIGHT synchronization; e.g. machines all within 35
milliseconds of each other, then you install and configure ntpd on all
your machines. Even this may not be enough since some Windows and Linux
machines have been known to "lose" clock interrupts when interrupts are
masked or disabled for too long a time by device drivers.
There are a couple of pre-built ntpd packages for Windows; one of them
comes with an "installer".
It also helps to have a rock solid time source which usually requires
something like a GPS Timing Receiver as a reference clock for ntpd on
the server.
<snip>
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