Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!umich!sharkey!rjf001!mudos!mju
From: mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Re: Network Time Server
Message-ID: <594c12w164w@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us>
Date: 13 Apr 91 22:59:03 GMT
References: <7274@spdcc.SPDCC.COM>
Organization: The Programmer's Pit Stop, +1 313 665 2832
Lines: 31

rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun) writes:
> minute per day.  The SCO documentation doesn't say anything about how
> one sets up a reference time source; timed only serves the purpose of
> synchronization, and there's no way of telling it which system is "the"
> reference source.

You need to designate the master time server, which is the machine
whose clock is assumed to be correct, and the reference source for the
other machines.  If you give timed the "-m" flag when you start it up,
it will tell the daemon to poll the network looking for other timed
master servers; if there aren't any, then it will become the master
server and notify the other slave timed's of this.

If the master server drops off the net for some reason, the slave
timed's are supposed to hold an "election" to decide who gets to be
the new master.  I believe the election procedure goes something along
the lines of computing the average of all the slaves' clocks, and then
picking the timed whose time was closest to the average as the new
master.  A timed that has the -m flag set (but didn't become a master
when started, because there was already a master on the network) has
precedence over timed's without the -m flag.

I believe there is also a utility (timeadm?) to maintain the timed
server, change which machine is the master server, etc.

All of this is documented nicely in the timed(1) man page, BTW.

--
Marc Unangst               |
mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us  | "Bus error: passengers dumped"
...!hela!mudos!mju         |