If your background is Windows NT administration, you are familiar with Windows
NT Date and Time Synchronization. It is a fairly manual process. You designate a
time server for the NT domain, see Setup
Domain Time Source Server . Then you embed the
NET TIME /DOMAIN: /SET
command in user’s login scripts to sychronize workstation date and
time with the NT server designated as a time source.
Windows 2000 automates the process. It is no longer manual. This is one of
many issues where Windows 2000 has improved over Windows NT. Because of
Kerberos, all W2K workstations and services must have synchronized times. The
synchronization is built into the authenication process. See Basic Operation of the Windows Time Service. The Windows Time
Synchronization service, W32Time, is a fully compliant implementation of the
Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) as detailed in IETF
RFC1769. In general, the PDC emulator for the W2K domain is the
authoritative time source. Workstations and servers will date and time synch to
it. You can check it periodically and adjust, but most PCs have clocks that lose
time. If you can, you need to use the sntp functionality of W2K. On the PDC, run
the following command:
net time /setsntp: ntp2.usno.navy.mil -or- net time /setsntp: 192.5.41.209 This will synchronize the PDC’s date and time with the US Navy’s Related time server tips:
internet-available sntp time source. And no, the /setsntp parm is not available
to Windows NT since its date and time service is not sntp compliant.
TIME
they feel there are serious issues
with W32Time as implemented in W2K
Windows NT 4.0 Domain
