[comp.sys.sun] time synchronization on Suns

Christopher-Vance@adfa.oz.au (Christopher JS Vance) (06/05/91)

We have a number of different kinds of hardware running a variety of
Unices, and would like to synchronize time across this lot.

We are running ntp on one Pyramid and one Sun (Sparc).  We are running
timed on all Pyramids (including the one running ntp), on some
Apollos, and on our Convex.

What we don't have is something to keep our other Suns in synch.  What
software is recommended for keeping our Suns together with each other
and with the other hosts (we have Sun-3s and Sun-4s)?

Is it reasonable to run timed on our Suns?  Has someone got a version
of timed which will compile and run properly on Sun-3s and Sun-4s
running SunOS 4.1.1?

What caveats are there in running timed on Suns?  What caveats are there
in running ntp and timed on the same machine?

Should we be barking up a different tree?

Ta.

-- Christopher

bob@morningstar.com (Bob Sutterfield) (06/05/91)

Use NTP on everything.  In particular, get the current version from
louie.udel.edu:pub/ntp/xntp/xntp.tar.Z, which corrals SPARCstations'
wayward clocks better than the older ntp.

If you have some systems that can't run NTP but instead require timed
chimes, then run a timed master on one system that's already also
running xntpd, but castrate it so that it won't adjtime() and
interfere with xntpd.  Run normal timeds on the systems that need
them.  The goal is to use NTP to provide your time reference and keep
most of your systems in tick, and then use timed as a last resort to
distribute chimes to only those systems that can't run NTP.