RE: [ActiveDir] Clock not syncing. Odd Error Logs

[Jared Taylor]

Maybe I missed something but that is what I have now. The DC syncs with NIST time > My email server syncs with the DC > my clients are told through Group Policy to sync with the DC via NTP. The problem is that their not in sync, which is why I thought GP might be broken. j   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Peter Jessop Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 3:07 PM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: Re: [ActiveDir] Clock not syncing. Odd Error Logs   I might be able to help you with this as I have recently been driven mental by clock problems. Of course clock problems alone cannot cause a psycosis but in certain circumstances they can push you over the edge. I have administred an AD domain since I updated it from NT4 and until about a week ago I had never confronted the clock issue. I started following the news group recently and is has provoked me to reexamine certain issues that I had mentally shelved. Recently there were two threads on this and Jorge provide a fine collection of URLs dealing with this issue. Of course many of you reading this are thinking 'what is this person going on about?'. It's not only fairly simple it doesn't even matter. Ask Einstein, if all the hosts share the same time, what the hell does it matter if it's 30 seconds out. Of course you may have your own ideas but I think the most important reason is that it looks bad when someone points out that the clock on their computer does not show the right time. That's right you have to maintain the illusion that you are in control. Well why was I driven mad by this seemingly trivial topic. I put a query here the other day and Gil gave me some good advice. 'Just set the time source for the PDC role owner DC to point to the member server, and set the time source for the member server to the outside time source.' Did he think I hadn't tried that. No I guess it was a way of saying, this is a simple issue just do it. And that's what I did. I stopped checking the effect on the registry of the net time command. I stopped breaking my head reading KB articles. I just realised that I had been trying to sync the server against a ntp server that was not returning the time. Jared I'm sorry if I've gone off the track here but I don't think you need GPs for this and I don't think you need a client program. All you have to do is follow freddy's advice 'Net time /setsntp:ntpserver', run this command on the PDC emulator. This will sync the DC with the ntp server. The other DCs will get the time from this server and the pcs and member servers will sync with the DCs. By the way can anyone tell me how you activate w32time logging? Well on second thoughts it's probably better if you don't. Regards Peter Jessop