NTP Configuration on Windows 2000 Workstation

NTP Configuration on Windows 2000 Workstation

Windows 2000 (Win2K) uses a time service, known as Windows Time Synchronization Service (Win32Time), to ensure that all Win2K computers on your network use a common time. The W32Time Service is a fully compliant implementation of the Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) as detailed in IETF RFC 1769. SNTP uses UDP port 123 by default. If you want to synchronize your time server with an SNTP server on the Internet, make sure that port is available.

• Select a NTP server, using

net time /setsntp:swisstime.ethz.ch

• Start the W32time service with

net start W32Time

You can also set the start option of the Windows Time Synchronization Service (W32Time) to Automatic, so the service will start when Windows/2000 starts.

Set the following Registry Entries for the W32Time Service (marked in blue color)

The registry values are located in the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters

• AvoidTimeSyncOnWan : REG_DWORD (optional)
  Prevents the computer from synchronizing with a computer that is in another site.
  0 = the site of the time source is ignored [default]
  1 = the computer does not synchronize with a time source that is in a different site
  

• GetDcBackoffMaxTimes : REG_DWORD (optional)
  The maximum number of times to double the backoff interval when successive attempts to find a domain controller do not succeed. An event is logged every time a wait of the maximum length occurs.
  0 = the wait between successive attempts is always the minimum and no event is logged
  7 = [default]
  

• GetDcBackoffMinutes : REG_DWORD (optional)
  The initial number of minutes to wait before looking for a domain controller if the last attempt did not succeed. 15 = [default]
  

• LocalNTP : REG_DWORD
  Used to start the SNTP server.
  0 = do not start the SNTP server unless this computer is a domain controller[default]
  1 = always start the SNTP server
  

• NtpServer : REG_SZ (swisstime.ethz.ch)
  NtpServer : REG_SZ (optional) Used to manually configure the time source. Set this to the DNS name or IP address of the NTP server to synchronize from. You can modify this from the command line by using the net time command. Value is blank by default
  

• Period : REG_DWORD or REG_SZ
  Used to control how often the time service synchronizes. If a string value is specified, it must be one of special ones listed below.
  0 = once a day
  65535, "BiDaily" = once every 2 days
  65534, "Tridaily" = once every 3 days
  65533, "Weekly" = once every week (7 days)
  65532, "SpecialSkew" = once every 45 minutes until 3 good synchronizations occur, then once every 8 hours (3 per day) [default]
  65531, "DailySpecialSkew" = once every 45 minutes until 1 good synchronization occurs, then once every day
  freq = freq times per day
  

• ReliableTimeSource : REG_DWORD (optional)
  Used to indicate that this computer has reliable time.
  0 = do not mark this computer as having reliable time [default]
  1 = mark this computer as having reliable time (this is only useful on a domain controller)
  

• Type : REG_SZ
  Used to control how a computer synchronizes.
  Nt5DS = synchronize to domain hierarchy [default]
  NTP = synchronize to manually configured source
  NoSync = do not synchronize time
  
  The Nt5DS setting may not use a manual configured source.

The Adj and msSkewPerDay values are used to preserve information about the computer's clock between restarts. Do not manually edit these values.