Now that I’ve convinced you that syncing your clocks is a good idea, you are probably wondering how to accomplish it. There are actually several ways to accomplish it depending on what kind of clients and servers you have on your network.

Most modern operating systems (Mac OS 8.6 and higher, Windows 2000, Windows XP) have client software built in to be able synchronize to a NTP (Network Time Protocol) Server or an SNTP (Simple Network Time Protocol) Server. There are hundreds of these servers all over the world. Many of these are open to the general public for synchronizing clocks.

The first thing you need to do is to decide on a strategy. If you only have 20 or 30 computers on your network, then all you really need to do is to set you clients to syncronize to one of the public time servers. In most cases, there is already a list of a public time servers in your client software. If you want the most up-to-date list, point your browser to the http://www.ntp.org

If you have more than 20 or 30 clients, or if your firewall blocks SNTP or NTP, then you should set up your own time server inside of your network. I’ll talk about that in my next post.

Let’s talk about how to sync some of your clients.

If you are using Windows 2000 or Windows XP Clients joined to a Windows 2000 domain or Active Directory, you are already syncing your clocks and you didn’t know it! Part of the login process for these clients is to automatically sync their clocks to the clock on the domain controller. That doesn’t leave you out of the woods though! You still should sync the clock on the domain controller to a network time server (use the info in the next paragraph to set that up).

If you don’t have your Windows 2000 or XP clients attached to a domain controller, then you should use the built in NTP client software. The only interface that Microsoft has built for configuring this client (that I’m aware of) is the Group Policy Editor. The simplest way to get to it in either 2000 or XP is to go to the start menu and choose the run command. In the run box, type gpedit.msc. In the gpedit window, choose Local Computer Policy, Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, System, and finally Windows Time Service. If you look at the instructions inside of that section, it will explain how to set your clients.

UPDATE (12-2-03): One of the people making comments on this article asked about where to find the NTP client in Windows 2000. After doing some research, I’ve discovered I was wrong about NTP clients being included in Windows 2000. It is only in Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server. For you Windows 2000 users, I would suggest NetTime, which is talked about in my Network Time Servers – Part 3 post.

UPDATE (12-3-02): My brother did some checking for me and discovered that Windows 2000 does, in fact, have an NTP client embedded in it, but it is hidden and can only be configured through editing the registry directly. For more information, follow this link: http://www.gudeads.com/english/main-windows-ntp.htm

If you run Macintosh clients, this is even easier. Apple has included NTP and SNTP client software in every operating system since Mac OS 8.6. In OS 8.6 and OS 9 you will find the client software in the Date/Time Control Panel. In Mac OS X you will find it in the Date/Time preference pane. Apple conveniently gives you a list of public servers and everything.

Happy time syncing!