[Gllug] Linux ntp talking to MS Windows

[Nix]

On Fri, 04 Aug 2006, Matthew Cooke wrote:
> I remember from when I used to have to keep a cluster of boxes in sync
> the ntpdate command will force an immediate sync. I used to run
> ntpdate every few months when our main application was down, I think
> it's quite sensible that ntpd does micro-adjustments as it could play
> havoc with time dependant code!

There are *many* programs that depend upon the monotonicity guarantee of
gettimeofday(), including many system daemons, a lot of X clients, and
until fairly recently the X server itself. Jumping the time backwards is
especially likely to wreak havoc, but merely drifting it too fast can
cause problems with things like `make' running over NFS.

So ntp goes to great lengths not to break things, and it does a very
good job of it too. It's so well-written that you can normally forget
that the time-synch problem even exists, or that ntpd is running to
deal with it :)

-- 
`We're sysadmins. We deal with the inconceivable so often I can clearly 
 see the need to define levels of inconceivability.' --- Rik Steenwinkel
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