[SunHELP] time sync; slew

[Jim Pennino]

On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 11:15:43AM -0500, Markham, Richard wrote:
> My objective is to sync my sun servers against two time servers
> that are in place.  The archives indicated several ways to do 
> this and I'm currious if implementing xntpd is the way to go.
> I plan to make a hard change of the system time and afterwards
> I hope that xntpd will slew the clock time regularly where the 
> time is kept closely in sync without and abrubt forward or 
> backward change.  If anyone is implementing this scenerio I 
> would like to see your /etc/init/ntp.conf file or welcome your
> opinions on this situation.
> _______________________________________________
> SunHELP maillist  -  SunHELP at sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/sunhelp

You might want to go to www.ntp.org and read up a bit on ntp.

IMHO ntp is the only sane way to keep the system time accurate.

Your ntp.conf file need have nothing more than:

server first-server-name-or-IP
server second--server-name-or-IP
driftfile /var/ntp/ntp.drift


The drift file has to exist.

When ntp starts on a Sun, the /etc/init.d/xntpd file calles ntpdate to
do a "slew" to the correct time. See man ntpdate for the particulars.

Once xntpd is running, it doesn't "slew", it adjusts the clock by small
amounts, fractions of a second, to keep it accurate assuming the time
servers are accessable and accurate. 

-- 
Jim Pennino