Best practice when changing the time

[abillybob]

Hello All

 

Hope you're all doing great!

 

Hoping some of you can help me, All our servers time have gone slightly out of sync around 8 minutes from the actual time ahead. Is there a best practice way that I can set the time correctly on the Domain Server for example and have all the other computers and servers sync to this time?

 

Thanks all!!

[Steve21]

Pick one main DC (assuming it's virtual remove the time link to host), point that DC to external time server.

Point other HOSTS to that DC, and let VMs use timelink with HOST

 

Bobs your uncle watch dates change!

 

Steve

[abillybob]

Will this cause our Kerberos authentication to break while this is happening do you know? There also dosen't seem to be an obvious way to point our DC to an external time server, I found this online https://www.beaming.co.uk/support/it-servers-applications/change-ntp-time-source-server-via-command-prompt/ is this an ok method to use and the rest just replicate but point to our DC's IP instead of uk.pool.ntp.org?

[Norphy]

Members of the domain get their time from the DC which holds the PDC emulator FSMO role so point that DC at the external time source.

 

There is also a registry setting which can make the W32Time service act as an SNTP server for other devices such as printers and switches to use.

 

Finally, there is a dhcp option which can tell clients where a time server is but I don’t know if clients will actually take any notice.

[abillybob]

Thanks both. I've ran the command from the above website as it suggested but the time hasn't changed on the DC?

[DJ-1701]

These are the commands I ran a while back on the DC... after turning of time syncing with the Hypervisor it's on.

 

net stop w32time
w32tm /config /syncfromflags:manual /manualpeerlist:"0.uk.pool.ntp.org, 1.uk.pool.ntp.org, 2.uk.pool.ntp.org, 3.uk.pool.ntp.org"
w32tm /config /reliable:yes
net start w32time

w32tm /query /configuration

[abillybob]

@DJ-1701 that worked thank you!! The other servers haven't updated yet, is there anyway to force a time sync?

 

If I run w32tm /resync it says the computer did not re-sync because no time data was available

Edited August 22, 2018 by abillybob

[DJ-1701]

If you type

net time \\DCNameHere /set /y

it should work.

[abillybob]

Thank you it does change but then very quickly reverts back to 10:25 (Which isn't the correct time as of writing this )

[DJ-1701]

Let me guess... the server is on a Hypervisor?

 

Most of the time VMs are set to take their time from the Hypervisor... if it's a HyperV and domain joined, if you run that command on the HyperV itself, it should sort itself out.

 

If it's not domain joined, if you instruct the Hypervisor to sync with your DC, it should sort itself out. Not sure what you use, but the command/instructions would be different for non-Microsoft technologies. It's either that or turn off time syncing with the Hypervisor for the VMs.

[abillybob]

All sorted thank you