[X4U] Adusting time

[Jerry]

NTP, typically consist of at least (2) applications.

The first being 'ntpdate'.  ntpdate is typically executed prior to the
ntp daemon being kicked off.  ntpdate's purpose is to get your system
clock within a second of actual time.

Once ntpdate has successfully ran, the NTP daemon is ran from here.
This binary typically has a file name of ntpd or xntpd, and runs
continuously in the background.

As stated earlier, the daemon is not capable of doing large time jumps,
hence the need for ntpdate.

Once the daemon has been running for some time and has stabilized, it
ultimately can get time accuracy within 232 picoseconds.

Unless you have your own atomic clock, you should always use multiple
NTP time servers to guard against 'server insanity'.  Yes, that is the
actual term.  Multiple servers guards against NTP time attacks.

Jerry


On 04/24/11 13:44, Craig Finseth wrote:
>        ...
>    I though my Mac was maybe a second slow when I first compared, but after
>    watching a while it seemed closer. Certainly better than the 30 seconds
>    w/ the Linux machines. The official time say it is w/in 1/10th of a
>    second of being right.
>       ...
> 
> Note that the NTP client won't always "jump set" to the correct time.
> Instead, it sometimes speeds up or slows down the clock by inserting
> multiple, small adjustments.  This helps regular daemon processes work
> better.
> 
> So, the "after waiting a while, it seems better" is normal.
> 
> Check the NTP client documentation for information on how it decides
> what to do.
> 
> Craig
> 
> ___________________