From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Oct 25 07:11:12 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id HAA19015 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Sun, 25 Oct 1998 07:11:12 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from mail.lig.bellsouth.net (mail.lig.bellsouth.net [205.152.0.50]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id HAA19010 for ; Sun, 25 Oct 1998 07:11:10 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from gljohns@bellsouth.net) Received: from gforce.johnson.home (host-209-214-144-42.msy.bellsouth.net [209.214.144.42]) by mail.lig.bellsouth.net (8.8.8-spamdog/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA19487; Sun, 25 Oct 1998 10:10:15 -0500 (EST) Received: from bellsouth.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by gforce.johnson.home (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id JAA00694; Sun, 25 Oct 1998 09:01:14 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from gljohns@bellsouth.net) Message-Id: <199810251501.JAA00694@gforce.johnson.home> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0.2 2/24/98 To: Graeme Tait cc: FreeBSD Questions From: Glenn Johnson Subject: Re: Time calibration ? In-Reply-To: Message from Graeme Tait of "Sun, 25 Oct 1998 08:37:02 PST." <363353AE.2772@echidna.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 09:01:14 -0600 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG cc: field trimmed > > That's my question - what does accurate time matter for in a typical network, and > how accurate is good enough? > > I ask because I'm involved in setting up a web/mail/ftp server, and was wondering > whether to use NTP. I notice quite a few Internet hosts do not maintain accurate > time, and are evidently just running on their internal clocks, being perhaps a few > minutes in error. > > Anytime you have file sharing, as is typical for a network, you at least want the peers to be in sync with each other. If you try compiling code across NFS mounts it is imperative to have the peers in sync. I see no reason not to have the peers in sync with the correct time. What I do is have one FreeBSD machine use xntp to sync with a stratum 2 ntp server and then all other machines sync with this machine on the LAN. I then have all the Unix, Windows, and Mac machines in sync, using whatever method is required for the respective platforms, to get the time from my "time" machine. -- Glenn Johnson gljohns@bellsouth.net To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message