Time synchronization is a service that maintains consistent server time across the network. Time synchronization is provided by the server operating system, not by eDirectory. eDirectory maintains its own internal time to ensure the proper order of eDirectory packets, but it gets its time from the server operating system.
This section focuses on integrating NetWare time synchronization with that of Windows, Linux, Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX.
In IP networks and mixed protocol networks, NetWare 5 servers communicate time with other servers using IP. NetWare 5 servers use timesync.nlm and Network Time Protocol (NTP) to accomplish this.
Time synchronization in NetWare 5 and 6 always uses timesync.nlm, whether servers are using IP only, IPXTM only, or both protocols. Timesync.nlm loads when a server is installed. NTP can be configured through timesync.nlm.
If your network also uses Windows, Linux, Solaris, AIX, or HP-UX, you should use NTP to synchronize the servers because it is a standard to provide time synchronization.
For NetWare 3 and NetWare 4, third-party NTP time services are available.
For more information on time synchronization software, see The Network Time Protocol Web site.
NTP functions as part of the UDP protocol suite, which is part of the TCP/IP protocol suite. Therefore, a computer using NTP must have the TCP/IP protocol suite loaded. Any computers on your network with Internet access can get time from NTP servers on the Internet.
NTP synchronizes clocks to the Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) standard, which is the international time standard.
NTP introduces the concept of a stratum. A stratum-1 server has an attached accurate time piece such as a radio clock or an atomic clock. A stratum-2 server gets time from a stratum-1 server, and so on.
For NetWare 5 and 6 servers, you can load ntp.nlm to implement NTP time synchronization through timesync.nlm. When NTP is configured with the timesync.nlm on an IP server, NTP becomes the time source for both IP and IPX servers. In this case, IPX servers must be set to secondary servers.
For more information on time synchronization, see the Network Time Management Administration Guide and the Network Time Protocol Administration Guide.
Timesync.nlm synchronizes time among NetWare servers. You can use timesync.nlm with an external time source like an Internet NTP server. You can also configure Novell ClientTM workstations to update their clocks to servers running the timesync.nlm.
For more information on time synchronization, refer to the Network Time Management Administration Guide.
For information on time synchronization for Windows NT and Windows 2000 servers, refer to the operating system documentation.
You can use the xntpd Network Time Protocol (NTP) daemon to synchronize time on Linux, Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX servers. xntpd is an operating system daemon that sets and maintains the system time-of-day in synchronism with Internet standard time servers.
For more information on running xntpd on AIX systems, see xntpd Daemon in the AIX Commands Reference, Volume 6.
For more information on running xntpd on Solaris system, see http://docs.sun.com/?p=/doc/806-0625/6j9vfim2v&a=view#xntpd-1m-indx-2.
For more information on running xntpd on HP-UX system, see Configuring NTP.
For information on running ntpd on Linux systems, see ntpd - Network Time Protocol (NTP) Daemon.
To verify that time is synchronized in the tree, run DSRepair from a server in the Tree that has at least Read/Write rights to the Tree object.
At the server console, load dsrepair.nlm.
Select Time Synchronization.
For help interpreting the log, click F1.
NOTE: The following command will help troubleshoot time synchronization issues:
set timesync debug=7