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Synchronize system clock

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nh39

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Oct 25, 2002
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Hi,
Is it possible to synchronize the clock on a G5 10.3 computer with a Windows 2000 domain server? Thank you.
Happy New Year!
 
Yes


From the Apple Menu, open the System Preferences window.

Click the Date & Time icon in the System section of the window.

In the Date & Time window, click the Network Time tab.

Click to activate the Use a network time server checkbox, if not already checked.

Then you may have to enter your server ip. It depends on how your server is set.


Dodge20
 
Hi Dodge20,
I looked but can't find the Network Time tab.
 
You can't find it because I am assumed something. I didn't look at panther and apparently changed this. There was something called ntp (network time protocol) which allows you to set the clock to any server. Now it looks like you have the options of selecting several servers depending on which city you choose, but not to your own server. This seems absolutely stupid to me.

Try this first.

Go to Date & Time, authenticate, and then type in the FQHN (fully-qualified host name) of the NTP time server you want to chime with, hit <Return> (and then de-authenticate) and the system stores the new entry properly.

If that doesn't work:

If you're at all comfortable with the command line, you can drop into Terminal and put your entry into the file "/private/etc/ntp.conf". By default, if you've chosen the Apple Americas time server in System Preferences, it will read

[0:13] nightowl:~ % cat /etc/ntp.conf
server time.apple.com minpoll 12 maxpoll 17

You can use a UNIX editor (or TextEdit, if you can get it to navigate to that folder) to change the "time.apple.com" to whatever you want - or, better yet, add additional servers using lines similar to those above. I just checked my copy, and sure enough, it has my altered time server setting in it.

It is a bit unfortunate that Apple has removed the ability to do an immediate time update from the System Preferences. If you're UNIX command-line savvy, once again you can overcome this in Terminal:

1. First, go to Date & Time and un-check "Set Date & Time automatically". (That will turn off the time server daemon momentarily. You'll turn it back on after you've manually reset the system clock with the time server.)
2. Then, from Terminal, type "sudo /usr/sbin/ntpdate -v" at the shell command-line prompt, and hit <Return>.
3. Then exit Terminal after "ntpdate" finishes. You should see something like this (if you have "time.apple.com" as your server):
[0:23] nightowl:~ % sudo ntpdate -v
10 Aug 00:23:51 ntpdate[5543]: ntpdate 4.1.1@1.786 Fri Sep 12 18:30:10 PDT 2003 (1)
10 Aug 00:23:51 ntpdate[5543]: adjust time server 17.254.0.28 offset 0.016772 sec

That's it! Now go back to Date & Time and re-check (re-enable) the "Set Date & Time automatically" check box. You're all set.

Note:
It's not obvious how to navigate to a file like /private/etc/ntp.conf in one of Panther's hidden folders. Here's one way to do it. In the finder's Go menu select "Go to Folder..." and type type the name of the folder, e.g. /private/etc. In the resulting folder window, drag the proxy folder icon at the top center onto the sidebar. Since the same sidebar now appears in open and save dialogs, you can use it to navigate within that folder in programs such as TextEdit. When you're done you can optionally drag the folder off the sidebar again in a Finder window.

Dodge20
 
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