[lug] Network time

[Jeff Francis]

  Actually, there's a very trivial way to set up a fairly accurate NTP
server on a linux (or other UNIX) box.  xntpd has an option to read an
NMEA-0183 serial data stream from a GPS receiver, and use it as the
reference clock.  There are a number of potential inacuracies with
this method, but it should certainly get you within several hundred
milliseconds of the "real" time (close enough for most applications -
certainly close enough for time-stamping your e-mail properly).
Telling the other machines to listen to NTP is usually as simple as
running an NTP daemon.  GPS receivers are getting awfully cheap, and
any *real* geek (heh heh heh) probably has an extra laying around.  As
an added bonus, you'll always know exactly where your office is (and
you'll know if they move your office building without bothering to
tell you). ;^)


On Tue, Dec 05, 2000 at 02:14:44PM -0500, John Karns wrote:
> I'm interested in a *simple* method (if there is such a class in the world
> of *nix) to set the clock of a dial-up machine via the net.  The method
> proposed here in a recent thread ("ntpdate time-nw.nist.gov") would do
> fine for this part.
> 
> Then I would like to propagate this time to various other Linux boxes on a
> *small* net.  I don't need all the complexity of ntp, which seems to be
> about as involved as setting up DNS (lord help us!).  I really don't care
> if my clocks are set to the precision of a cesium clock, and it's not a
> big deal if there is are a few seconds difference between various
> machines.
> 
> Is there a way of doing this without setting up an ntp server on my local
> net?
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> John Karns                                              jkarns at csd.net
> Bogota, Colombia                                  Voice: 57-1-341-0300
> 
> 
> 
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