Setting Up NTP for Time Sync

I'm running two machines. One is an XP Pro box called solarblast, and the other is a
RHL9 box called astropc2004. I see that ntp is running on the Linux box. I would like
to be able to set its time via the accurate time solarblast keeps. How do I do that?
I do not see a ntp man page. There is a /etc/ntp.conf. Do I need Samba?
--
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

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

W. Watson wrote:
> I'm running two machines. One is an XP Pro box called solarblast, and
> the other is a RHL9 box called astropc2004. I see that ntp is running on
> the Linux box. I would like to be able to set its time via the accurate
> time solarblast keeps. How do I do that? I do not see a ntp man page.

http://www.hmug.org/man/8/ntpd.html

--
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 17:23:55 +0000, W. Watson wrote:

> I'm running two machines. One is an XP Pro box called solarblast, and
> the other is a RHL9 box called astropc2004. I see that ntp is running on
> the Linux box. I would like to be able to set its time via the accurate
> time solarblast keeps. How do I do that? I do not see a ntp man page.
> There is a /etc/ntp.conf.

The server daemon ntpd is also a powerful client (driftfiles etc.) and
does an excellent job. Another option is to set ntpdate to run as a cron
job.
http://cfm.gs.washington.edu/network/ntp/ntp/

> Do I need Samba?

Not for NTP.

Snowbat wrote:
> On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 17:23:55 +0000, W. Watson wrote:
>
>>I'm running two machines. One is an XP Pro box called solarblast, and
>>the other is a RHL9 box called astropc2004. I see that ntp is running on
>>the Linux box. I would like to be able to set its time via the accurate
>>time solarblast keeps. How do I do that? I do not see a ntp man page.
>>There is a /etc/ntp.conf.
>
>
> The server daemon ntpd is also a powerful client (driftfiles etc.) and
> does an excellent job. Another option is to set ntpdate to run as a cron
> job.
> http://cfm.gs.washington.edu/network/ntp/ntp/
>
>
>>Do I need Samba?
>
> Not for NTP.

You only need one line in /etc/ntp.conf :
server solarblast

Everything else within is optional.

Make sure to SIGHUP the xntpd to reread /etc/ntp.conf

--
reply to usenet only - email account disabled

Snowbat wrote:
> On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 17:23:55 +0000, W. Watson wrote:
>
>
>>I'm running two machines. One is an XP Pro box called solarblast, and
>>the other is a RHL9 box called astropc2004. I see that ntp is running on
>>the Linux box. I would like to be able to set its time via the accurate
>>time solarblast keeps. How do I do that? I do not see a ntp man page.
>>There is a /etc/ntp.conf.
>
>
> The server daemon ntpd is also a powerful client (driftfiles etc.) and
> does an excellent job. Another option is to set ntpdate to run as a cron
> job.
> http://cfm.gs.washington.edu/network/ntp/ntp/
>
>
>>Do I need Samba?
>
>
> Not for NTP.

In case Windows is serving NTP via udp/123, you just need one line in
/etc/ntp.conf :
server solarblast

Don't forget to SIGHUP the xntpd to reread /etc/ntp.conf

--
reply to usenet only - email account disabled

W. Watson wrote:
> I'm running two machines. One is an XP Pro box called solarblast, and
the
> other is a
> RHL9 box called astropc2004. I see that ntp is running on the Linux
box. I
> would like
> to be able to set its time via the accurate time solarblast keeps.
How do I
> do that?
> I do not see a ntp man page. There is a /etc/ntp.conf. Do I need
Samba?

The links below are useful but "solution" evades me at the moment.

Was just reading this:
http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man1/ntpd.1.html

Before doing anything else, check that XP Pro _can_ act as a conformant
-- ie., not extended by MS -- time server. If so, you will use ntp to
connect Linux to XP Pro -- via TCP/IP, no samba should be needed. If
not, you may be SOL

Note: Just ran into a reminder -- XP uses MS's SNTP and not a
conformant ntp. Has to do with Kerberos authentication as
used/extended by MS, IIRC. Been a while since I've dealt with this.
Something in my "archives"? Need to look.

You may need to check out the new ntpv4 requirements:
http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/html/index.html

Then again, you can use the Linux ntpd to connect to the same time
server and request joining a multi-cast group (can XP?) so that both XP
and Linux process the same packets. ???

Maintainging accurate RTC time on Linux is a bit problematic. Most
(default) installations use hwclock which is really meant to work with
a 24/7 box to calculate drift and adjust time. If you frequently (more
than once a month) turn off your Linux box you probably need to look
into Chrony:

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/TimePrecis...tp.chrony.html
http://chrony.sunsite.dk/index.php/

Rather than 86 this whole post I'll get back later after I've had a
chance to look further -- I ought to in order to be prepared for the
(inevitable) day that I must get XP and Linux time synching.
Excuse the bandwidth usage.

see ya'
prg
email above disabled

I have read the other posts to mine, and will look at some of things mentioned. Since
I posted the original a few hours ago, a few things of interest have occurred.

I discovered the need to put the "server 192.168.0.3" in my ntp.conf file, as
mentioned by a few posters. The IP address is for the XP machine, solarblast.
192.168.0.1 is for the Linux box, astropc2004. I then reset the clock and date
through the RHL9 calendar icon on the panel of the desk top to be very far off the
real time/date. I then used it again to fire up ntp, using a check box on the dialog,
to get the info from the XP. A small "Waiting" dialog appeared for about 10 seconds,
and then the calendar/date dialog disappeared. No change in date or time. I found
this a bit odd, since if I fire up W2k on the Linux box, I can set its time from XP.

After some more Googling, I found that the LocalNTP entry in XP's registry should be
set to binary 1. Mine was binary 0. I then repeated the above on Linux, but still
nothing. Perhaps I needed to boot XP. Haven't tried that yet. Setting the value to 1
is still a little perplexing because W2k had no trouble with the sync.

I see a few people suggested a SIGHUP. I'm sort of a rookie at this, but I think that
means basically to restart NTP on Linux. I'll do that and reboot XP and report back.

--
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

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

W. Watson wrote:
> I have read the other posts to mine, and will look at some of things
> mentioned. Since I posted the original a few hours ago, a few things of
> interest have occurred.
>
> I discovered the need to put the "server 192.168.0.3" in my ntp.conf
> file, as mentioned by a few posters. The IP address is for the XP
> machine, solarblast. 192.168.0.1 is for the Linux box, astropc2004. I
> then reset the clock and date through the RHL9 calendar icon on the
> panel of the desk top to be very far off the real time/date. I then used
> it again to fire up ntp, using a check box on the dialog, to get the
> info from the XP. A small "Waiting" dialog appeared for about 10
> seconds, and then the calendar/date dialog disappeared. No change in
> date or time. I found this a bit odd, since if I fire up W2k on the
> Linux box, I can set its time from XP.
>
> After some more Googling, I found that the LocalNTP entry in XP's
> registry should be set to binary 1. Mine was binary 0. I then repeated
> the above on Linux, but still nothing. Perhaps I needed to boot XP.
> Haven't tried that yet. Setting the value to 1 is still a little
> perplexing because W2k had no trouble with the sync.
>
> I see a few people suggested a SIGHUP. I'm sort of a rookie at this, but
> I think that means basically to restart NTP on Linux. I'll do that and
> reboot XP and report back.
>
Well, the XP boot and the ntp restart didn't change a thing. Linux didn't sync its
time with XP.

--
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

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

W. Watson wrote:
> W. Watson wrote:
>
>> I have read the other posts to mine, and will look at some of things
>> mentioned. Since I posted the original a few hours ago, a few things
>> of interest have occurred.
>>
>> I discovered the need to put the "server 192.168.0.3" in my ntp.conf
>> file, as mentioned by a few posters. The IP address is for the XP
>> machine, solarblast. 192.168.0.1 is for the Linux box, astropc2004. I
>> then reset the clock and date through the RHL9 calendar icon on the
>> panel of the desk top to be very far off the real time/date. I then
>> used it again to fire up ntp, using a check box on the dialog, to get
>> the info from the XP. A small "Waiting" dialog appeared for about 10
>> seconds, and then the calendar/date dialog disappeared. No change in
>> date or time. I found this a bit odd, since if I fire up W2k on the
>> Linux box, I can set its time from XP.
>>
>> After some more Googling, I found that the LocalNTP entry in XP's
>> registry should be set to binary 1. Mine was binary 0. I then repeated
>> the above on Linux, but still nothing. Perhaps I needed to boot XP.
>> Haven't tried that yet. Setting the value to 1 is still a little
>> perplexing because W2k had no trouble with the sync.
>>
>> I see a few people suggested a SIGHUP. I'm sort of a rookie at this,
>> but I think that means basically to restart NTP on Linux. I'll do that
>> and reboot XP and report back.
>>
> Well, the XP boot and the ntp restart didn't change a thing. Linux
> didn't sync its time with XP.
>

ntpd does not step the time if it is far off.

Use ntpdate to coarse sync the Linux box before
starting the ntp daemon.

If you still have problems, run tcpdump for UDP
port 123 to see if messages are exchanged. For
decoded messages, use Ethereal instead of tcpdump.

--

Tauno Voipio
tauno voipio (at) iki fi

"W. Watson" <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

>>
>Well, the XP boot and the ntp restart didn't change a thing. Linux didn't sync its
>time with XP.

Does your XP box run an NTP timeserver?

What makes you think your XP box is accurate?

Note that you may also be confused about ntp. It does NOT change the clock
to the correct time. It changes the rate of the clock so that it will
eventually (depending on how far off it is) get to the right time.