Windows XP NTP client? Little help please :)

[Sunner]

Just wondering if MS ever released any updates for Windows XP to make the w32time service handle NTP as opposed to just SNTP?
I know W2K3 Server does this since Sp1 or whenever it was.
Or will I simply have to download some third party client for this?

And yeah, I tried Google, kinda hard to find anything though since everyone seems to be using NTP and SNTP ambiguously, so every damn document I find is about just configuring the default w32time service.

 

[stash]

XP comes with a full NTP client. SNTP was only in Windows 2000.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: stash
XP comes with a full NTP client. SNTP was only in Windows 2000.

Hmm, was mostly guessing since the net time /setsntp command remains without any /setntp equivalent.
Well, the reason I ask is, some XP boxes keep telling me they can't sync to an NTP server that a bunch of *NIX boxes can sync just fine to using ntpdate or ntpd.
Searching a bit for this mostly turns up articles about domain specific stuff involving domain controllers and so forth, plus some links for third party clients...

Is something really weird going on, or am I completely wrong in thinking that this should be configured in the usual time configuration application? Or using "net time" by all means.

 

[stash]

The net time command is deprecated on XP, don't use it. w32tm is the command you want.

If this is an XP client that is not part of a domain, you can run the following to tell it to sync to a NTP server: "w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:<NTP server fqdn or IP> /syncfromflags:manual /update"

If they are on an AD domain, you don't want to mess with them. They should already be set to NT5DS or AllSync, which means it will use the built in NTP hierarchy in AD to sync. You can check to see how a client is configured by running "w32tm /dumpreg /subkeyarameters" The values that you'll want to look at are Type and possibly NtpServer.

If Type is NT5DS, it will ignore NtpServer and sync with the domain (this is good). If it is set to AllSync, it will use the domain first and then fall back to the NtpServer (also good). If it says NTP that means it will only sync with the NtpServer value, which is bad for domain clients. Good for non-domain clients.

 

[Sunner]

Ah, thanks a bunch, gonna give that a try soonish

 

[Sunner]

Oh and while I'm asking, what's the relation between this and the Internet Time config Date and Time Properties?
I presume the latter uses w32time somehow, but apparently not regular NTP?

 

[stash]

No that uses the same mechanism. It's basically a nice GUI for setting an NTP server to sync with. But it doesn't let you change the Type value, so you could potentially set a server in that UI, but if Type is NT5DS, it will ignore that server.

But on a standalone non-domain joined machine, that UI should work fine. I forgot it was there

 

[Sunner]

Hmm, still won't work.
Doesn't update, and using the GUI to force it manually results in the regular "An error occurred..." message.

The command I used is "w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:ntp1.sp.se /syncfromflags:manual /update"

Output from w32tm /dumpreg

Value Name Value Type Value Data
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------

Type REG_DWORD 32
Start REG_DWORD 2
ErrorControl REG_DWORD 1
ImagePath REG_EXPAND_SZ %SystemRoot%\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs
DisplayName REG_SZ Windows Time
ObjectName REG_SZ LocalSystem
Description REG_SZ Maintains date and time synchronization on all clients and servers in the network. If this service is stopped, date and time synchronization will be unavailable. If this service is disabled, an
y services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start.

And /dumpreg /subkeyarameters:

Value Name Value Type Value Data
--------------------------------------------------------------------

ServiceMain REG_SZ SvchostEntry_W32Time
ServiceDll REG_EXPAND_SZ C:\WINDOWS\system32\w32time.dll
NtpServer REG_SZ ntp1.sp.se
Type REG_SZ NTP

I've made sure there are no network problems, and tried syncing with a few Linux and BSD boxes so there's no problem with the server either.

Confused...

 

[Sunner]

Come forth mighty Stash, and save me!



Umm...yeah....bump that is...

 

[Sunner]

Ok, one more

 

[stash]

Sorry bout that, been busy this week. Everything you posted looks good, not sure why it isn't syncing. Do you see any w32time events in the system log?

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: stash
Sorry bout that, been busy this week. Everything you posted looks good, not sure why it isn't syncing. Do you see any w32time events in the system log?

Checked it before, but must've missed these.

The time service has not been able to synchronize the system time for 49152 seconds because none of the time providers has been able to provide a usable time stamp. The system clock is unsynchronized.

I have a bunch of those, funny thing is they all say 49152 seconds despite being logged at completely different times(and different days by all means).

 

[stash]

Is this box running XP SP2?

 

[Sunner]

Yep.
Guess I could never mind it for now, gonna be reinstalling next week anyway, and this box isn't really that important, more of a "pilot" so to speak, I just annoyed when things don't work