MAC Time wandering causing issues with authentication with AD

Please if there is a God someone have and answer to this question.

We were bullied by our Music Department into buying MAC's. (Snow Leopard)

To ensure we could track user logins we have joined them to our Active Directory Domain, this all worked out fine until we noticed that the clock was wandering randomly so much so it stopped people logging on to the domain.

The upshot is we are getting phone calls some times weekly with complaints people cannot log on.

Once you log on locally reset the clock all is well.

Tried setting the time service to point at Apple and our own Time Server to no avail.

Our Senior tech is about to throw them in the bin (or make shiny book ends), very frustrating.

Anyone with an answer - greatly appreciated.

P.S any MAC lovers about to blame windows or say it's not really broken it's a feature please do not post.

Don't get me wrong I think MACs have a place but it is worrying when a device cannot keep it's clock in sync.

Hi there.

I'd work out why NTP isn't working properly to keep the time in check.

Add one or more of the DC ip addresses into DHCP under the time servers option, this will point them at the servers for NTP and should get it going again nicely. You can also set your timezone etc in there aswell for some nice easy setups of compatible devices that need to access stuff via kerberos.

Oh and your right, Macs do have their uses :D :D :
http://greenopolis.com/files/images/imacs08.png

MMM not a bad thought

At the end of the day it all comes down to config files.

Looks like you can't edit the ntp.conf file because after a reboot it reverts same with loads of other ntp and ntpd file which I have tried to hack.

However I have changed the hostconfig file to read in /etc to read

TIMESYNC=-YES-

I then restart the ntp service and the time changed to the correct time.

To be honest not sure what has happened, me thinks I have stop it using NTP so it has reverted to it's Hardware Clock - which is obviously right.

I may be completly wrong, however it seems to be working - watch this space.

Going to join the machine to AD and we'll see;)

We are having the same issue and it's been driving me up the wall having to reset them each time they are booted to windows. Off to try your fix now......

OK - over the weekend, the time did slip, however I have found another bit of info which seems to set the ntp.conf file and fix it.

NTP Clients
Again the following should be done in the described order.
On Mac OS X Clients and on those Mac OS X Servers that are to act as NTP clients (that means they query a time server but do not answer NTP queries) the following needs to be done:
In System Preferences ("Date and Time" pref pane) "synchronize time automatically" must be ticked; then the first tab of this pref pane must be activated and the window left open. Then in Terminal a time server to sync with must be added to /etc/ntp.conf like so (as to finding the right time server see above):
server mein.zeitserver.de prefer iburst minpoll 12 maxpoll 15
Now /etc/ntp.conf must be saved and made unchangeble:
sudo chflags uchg /etc/ntp.conf
After that the System Preferences can be closed.
On a Mac OS X Client that is all. On a Mac OS X Server the file /etc/hostconfig must be edited to contain:
TIMESYNC=-YES-

Still working on it

Ours doesn't move unless we boot to windows, then we end up a whole hour out... Driving me mad resetting them.

Had the same issue previously and this is what I did to resolve it. Never had a time sync problem since.
Xserve points to win 2008 time server
Mac clients point to Xserve for time

This certainly has resolved our mac time related issues.

Checked with the MAC today all seems well.

We don't have a MAC server or boot camp/parallels etc.

The trick I posted above does seem to be working


Open Terminal
Sudo vi /etc/ntp.conf

change server to server your time server

Make /etc/ntp.conf unchangeble:

sudo chflags uchg /etc/ntp.conf


Edit the /etc/hostconfig must be edited to contain:

TIMESYNC=-YES-

Save and close out of terminal

Ensure in preferences on date and time that the use time server is ticked - don't worry which Apple server it points to that is irrelevant.

Wne I get 5 mins I will post the proper process but I want to check it works over a longer period

This has been discussed before and here is my suggestion.

Interesting stuff from the NTP people themselves.

I'm in a mixed Mac/PC environment and have no problems syncing to our Windows Domain Controller (NTP server). Tick set time & date automatically in preferences and point to your NTP server I do use the IP address not the name.

This has been discussed before and here is my suggestion.

Interesting stuff from the NTP people themselves.

I'm in a mixed Mac/PC environment and have no problems syncing to our Windows Domain Controller (NTP server). Tick set time & date automatically in preferences and point to your NTP server. I do use the IP address not the server name.