[MacTUG] a drifting network time

[Donald Duff-McCracken]

Does anyone else have lazy macs that do not update their network time frequently enough and have their time drift by a few minutes?

It happens to me fairly frequently, and every now and then a mac drifts in its time by more than 5 minutes so that it cannot synch with active directory.

I have a question and then a semi-solution:

QUESTION: What time server are you guys using? I am using ns1.uwaterloo.ca — I use this instead of time.apple.ca as I really do not care if I have the 'right' time but just want a time that is right from the perspective of the servers on campus. I figure if I am using a campus time server if time drifts on campus I can still synch with AD. Bernie suggested I try synching with Nexus, and it seems that nexus.uwaterloo.ca is serving up time and it seems to work.  Anyhow, what time servers are people are folks using? (I am most interested in macs that are hooking up to AD, not personal machines which likely are hooked up to time.apple.com)

My Semi-Solution:
Send this command out from good old Apple Remote Desktop (as root) to all my machines:
ntpdate –u time.apple.com

It updates the time. I ran this just now and a lot of my macs were off by hundreds of seconds!


Don
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Donald Duff-McCracken
Technical Services Manager
Mapping, Analysis & Design
Faculty of Environment
University of Waterloo
(519) 888-4567 x32151
http://www.environment.uwaterloo.ca/computing/people/don.html
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