ProWebUK said:
I personally dont bother using time servers.... usually when you set the time theres enough power in the wall socket to keep the clock arms moving at the rate they should......
Since there's always some drift over time, and since we've never managed to set the time "exactly", we use a time-server hourly to make sure all the systems we manage, in multiple data centers, have the same time.
You'd be surprised how important that is when tracking problems through logs, especiallly mail delivery problems between servers.
l0rdphi1 said:
And on different time zones, I think you have to find a time server in your time zone. Not 100% sure though.
You do NOT need to use a time-server in your time-zone, though using one close by will result in a bit more accuracy, since there'll be less deviation from average latency (which your sync program will adjust for) for an individual time transmission, over a shorter distance.
What we do (RHL7.3) is set the bios clock at GMT at build time, and let the RHL installation program know we've done it (so it'll handle DST properly), and set the time zone for all OUR servers to Pacific Time, since that's where we're located (for our clients, we set the timezone to their preference).
Then we do synchronization hourly.
Frankly, if everyone did this, it would be a lot easier to track spammers, hackers, etc., between systems, based on log entries.
S2S-Robert said:
well I'm having the time issue, so I'm going to start looking for a sync server in my time-zone
As I mentioned above, the server should be close by for the most accuracy, but it really doesn't have to be in your time-zone.
Note that if you're in the US you can use a US-government-run time-server without notifying them, but otherwise, even for public time-servers, it's considered proper netiquette to notify the system admin when you start using their server.
See:
http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/servers.html
which was last modified September 26, 2003.
Jeff