[Gllug] Linux ntp talking to MS Windows

[Mike Brodbelt]

Chris Bell wrote:
> On Thu 03 Aug, Mike Brodbelt wrote:
> 
> 
>> This doesn't solve the original question of course, but I've only ever
>> used it the other way round. It's quite easy to make Windows XP clients
>> sync to a Linux NTP server, and seems to work quite well.
>>
> 
> 
>    I understood that ntp can only nudge the time at a low rate, and is
> unable to cope with the fast drift that could occur with a dead battery
> hanging on the chip.

This is true, but I think it's policy as opposed to ability. It's seen
as bad to step the time by too large a chunk at once, so ntpd will
gradually align the system clock with the actual time. If you use
ntpdate however, it'll just jump it directly to the current time.

>    There seems to be growing apprehension about any process requiring write
> access to the BIOS hardware in case some malware attempts to abuse the
> privilege.

There've been BIOS killing viruses before, that's true. The clock data
is in CMOS memory though, and screwing that up won't kill your system
(though it might force you to go back through BIOS setup before it'll
boot again). If you can access the flash memory the actual BIOS is
stored in you can certainly kill things though. Many modern motherboards
have a jumper so you have to physically write enable the BIOS before you
flash it.

Mike

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