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Question

set network time at startup?

  • November 4, 2008
  • 1 reply
  • 6 views
A
  • Anonymous

I got Issues with timesync on dual-boot macs.

We have AD which is more time sensitive now and some people are having login issues when going back and forth between Mac OS and WinXP on BootCamp. So I've been reading a lot about this and haven't found a good fix. I have the network time sync checked to time.apple.com, Windows has a policy to sync to time.apple.com also. It doesn't seem to sync all the time but usually at start and login with local account but not with AD accts all the time. I think this is partly due to the wireless not always loading to the known SSID before the Login Window loads.

I'd like to set two time servers in ntpd.conf one internal and one external, for users that take their laptops home. then I'd like a startup trigger that says, sync network time. I tried ntpdate in Terminal but it says "NTP socket is in use." and in the Console, I get a lot of errors about "(org.ntp.ntpd) Unknown key: SHAutorizationRight"

Challenges are that this problem is not consistent on different computers, so it is hard to recreate. Any other ideas for help? And because Casper controls startup items and login hooks, I need to send this command using Casper.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story070507030228844
http://www.macwindows.com/bootcamp.html#013008c
http://www.macwindows.com/bootcamp.html#010408x

Here are some solutions??
http://www.mazadigital.com/
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24116?viewlocale=en_US
http://refit.sourceforge.net/

    1 reply

    A
    • Anonymous
    • November 14, 2008

    We've had the same problems with time issues on our Macs and ended up
    writing a custom synchronization script. It could handle some enhancements
    and possibly hooking into the system better. Right now it waits for 2
    minutes before trying to synchronize on startup. We also have the script run
    every day at 9am (via /etc/periodic/daily).

    We use the servers in this order:
    1) time.nist.gov
    2) the ADC

    Each computer synchronizes twice. Once for each server in the list.

    I haven't tested it on Leopard yet, but I know on Tiger you had to kill
    Ntpd and ntpdate in order to get the time to actually be updated, which is
    why you get "NTP socket is in use." errors.

    I've attached the script that we run, if you plan on using it you should
    replace "time.example.com" with the server you want it to sync with.

    Hope that helps, and gives you a direction to look in.

    David Lundgren
    IT Systems Administrator

    Brooks Institute - "Passion, Vision, Excellence"
    27 East Cota Street
    Santa Barbara, CA 93101
    (888) 304-3456 (toll-free)
    (805) 690-7615 (office)
    http://www.brooks.edu

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