Clock Sync

[enjay]

After a recent problem where the clocks on our workstations were out, I've just noticed a more serious one whereby part of our backup was failing because the NAS box was still on British Summer Time so the server couldn't connect. I've heard mixed views on using NTP servers to keep everything in check - what do you folks think??

[irsprint84]

I wouldnt do it any other way! get uk.pool NTP servers

[Chuckster]

I would do the above as @irsprint84 has mentioned if you want successful backups.

[enjay]

Thanks guys. So I followed the steps on pool.ntp.org: How do I setup NTP to use the pool? and entered the UK time servers, everything looks good. The NAS can only take a single NTP server address though, do I just use "uk.pool.ntp.org" for that?

[irsprint84]

Thanks guys. So I followed the steps on pool.ntp.org: How do I setup NTP to use the pool? and entered the UK time servers, everything looks good. The NAS can only take a single NTP server address though, do I just use "uk.pool.ntp.org" for that?

 

Yes do that

[teejay]

Only your domain controller should point to an external ntp source, the rest of the network should get it's time from the domain controller.

[enjay]

The workstations do all get their time from the DC; my issues were a) making sure the DC was right to start with, and b) keeping the NAS in sync with it.

 

Hang on - what would happen if I gave the NAS box the DC's IP address as an NTP server? Would that work??

[teejay]

The workstations do all get their time from the DC; my issues were a) making sure the DC was right to start with, and b) keeping the NAS in sync with it.

 

Hang on - what would happen if I gave the NAS box the DC's IP address as an NTP server? Would that work??

 

Yes, should do.

[enjay]

Yes, that seems to have taken - hard to tell for definite though, I might change the clocks during the holidays to be sure that they're syncing back (and put a note in my calendar for 25th March 2012...)

[knelmes]

What are these mixed views you've heard? I can't imagine why you wouldn't take advantage of NTP servers.

[enjay]

What are these mixed views you've heard? I can't imagine why you wouldn't take advantage of NTP servers.

Possibly from control-freaks who don't like going outside "their" networks, or people who use the wrong ones and get bad times. Our support provider did say they'd had problems with them not connecting, but that could likely be a proxy server issue.