Time sync problems

Good afternoon,

Our WS2008 domain controller which has the PDC emulator role and therefore
acts as the time source for the whole domain, has been losing time which
seems to indicate it has problems contacting an NTP service. At the moment
it is configured as follows

(LIst of peers)


Peer: time.windows.com,0x1
State: Active
Time Remaining: 618.3029985s
Mode: 1 (Symmetric Active)
Stratum: 0 (unspecified)
PeerPoll Interval: 6 (64s)
HostPoll Interval: 6 (64s)

There are no events in the System event log for w32time.

Today I manually sent the resync command to it and the clock immediately
gained about 8 minutes. The desktops that I checked later also had synced
themselves to the new time.

I have been aware of the clocks on the computers drifting over a period of
several weeks but they are all keepng in sync with the PDC which is the most
important thing for AD authentication.

We have had a few problems of late with other servers not syncing themselves
causing login problems for users. I hope this is all licked now but I still
can't understand why the PDC emulator is not syncing automatically.

--

Hello NZSchooltech,

Any firewall activatedn that blocks port 123 UDP on the DC or the domain
machines? Make sure to use only domain DNS serverson the NICs of all machines
and not the ISPs one or other external DNS servers.

On a client run:
w32tm /config /syncfromflags:domhier /update

After that run:
net stop w32time
net start w32time

Then check the client event viewer for errors.

Best regards

Meinolf Weber
Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers
no rights.
** Please do NOT email, only reply to Newsgroups
** HELP us help YOU!!! http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm


> Good afternoon,
>
> Our WS2008 domain controller which has the PDC emulator role and
> therefore acts as the time source for the whole domain, has been
> losing time which seems to indicate it has problems contacting an NTP
> service. At the moment it is configured as follows
>
> (LIst of peers)
>
> Peer: time.windows.com,0x1
> State: Active
> Time Remaining: 618.3029985s
> Mode: 1 (Symmetric Active)
> Stratum: 0 (unspecified)
> PeerPoll Interval: 6 (64s)
> HostPoll Interval: 6 (64s)
> There are no events in the System event log for w32time.
>
> Today I manually sent the resync command to it and the clock
> immediately gained about 8 minutes. The desktops that I checked later
> also had synced themselves to the new time.
>
> I have been aware of the clocks on the computers drifting over a
> period of several weeks but they are all keepng in sync with the PDC
> which is the most important thing for AD authentication.
>
> We have had a few problems of late with other servers not syncing
> themselves causing login problems for users. I hope this is all licked
> now but I still can't understand why the PDC emulator is not syncing
> automatically.
>

This sounds like a problem with your PDCe being able to get to an external
time source. Probably a firewall.

--
Paul Bergson
MVP - Directory Services
MCITP - Enterprise Administrator
MCTS, MCT, MCSE, MCSA, MCP, Security +, BS CSci
2008, Vista, 2003, 2000 (Early Achiever), NT4
Microsoft's Thrive IT Pro of the Month - June 2009

http://www.pbbergs.com

Please no e-mails, any questions should be posted in the NewGroups. This
posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights.
"NZSchoolTech" <> wrote in message
news:%...
> Good afternoon,
>
> Our WS2008 domain controller which has the PDC emulator role and therefore
> acts as the time source for the whole domain, has been losing time which
> seems to indicate it has problems contacting an NTP service. At the moment
> it is configured as follows
>
> (LIst of peers)
>
>
> Peer: time.windows.com,0x1
> State: Active
> Time Remaining: 618.3029985s
> Mode: 1 (Symmetric Active)
> Stratum: 0 (unspecified)
> PeerPoll Interval: 6 (64s)
> HostPoll Interval: 6 (64s)
>
> There are no events in the System event log for w32time.
>
> Today I manually sent the resync command to it and the clock immediately
> gained about 8 minutes. The desktops that I checked later also had synced
> themselves to the new time.
>
> I have been aware of the clocks on the computers drifting over a period of
> several weeks but they are all keepng in sync with the PDC which is the
> most important thing for AD authentication.
>
> We have had a few problems of late with other servers not syncing
> themselves causing login problems for users. I hope this is all licked now
> but I still can't understand why the PDC emulator is not syncing
> automatically.
>
> --
>
>

NTP is allowed by a rule in our ISA firewall. A manual sync worked, the
server is just not auto syncing apparently since its clock changed quite a
lot with the manual sync.

--


"Meinolf Weber [MVP-DS]" <meiweb@(nospam)gmx.de> wrote in message
news: .com...
> Hello NZSchooltech,
>
> Any firewall activatedn that blocks port 123 UDP on the DC or the domain
> machines? Make sure to use only domain DNS serverson the NICs of all
> machines and not the ISPs one or other external DNS servers.
>
> On a client run:
> w32tm /config /syncfromflags:domhier /update
>
> After that run:
> net stop w32time
> net start w32time
>
> Then check the client event viewer for errors.
>
> Best regards
>
> Meinolf Weber
> Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and
> confers no rights.
> ** Please do NOT email, only reply to Newsgroups
> ** HELP us help YOU!!! http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm
>
>> Good afternoon,
>>
>> Our WS2008 domain controller which has the PDC emulator role and
>> therefore acts as the time source for the whole domain, has been
>> losing time which seems to indicate it has problems contacting an NTP
>> service. At the moment it is configured as follows
>>
>> (LIst of peers)
>>
>> Peer: time.windows.com,0x1
>> State: Active
>> Time Remaining: 618.3029985s
>> Mode: 1 (Symmetric Active)
>> Stratum: 0 (unspecified)
>> PeerPoll Interval: 6 (64s)
>> HostPoll Interval: 6 (64s)
>> There are no events in the System event log for w32time.
>>
>> Today I manually sent the resync command to it and the clock
>> immediately gained about 8 minutes. The desktops that I checked later
>> also had synced themselves to the new time.
>>
>> I have been aware of the clocks on the computers drifting over a
>> period of several weeks but they are all keepng in sync with the PDC
>> which is the most important thing for AD authentication.
>>
>> We have had a few problems of late with other servers not syncing
>> themselves causing login problems for users. I hope this is all licked
>> now but I still can't understand why the PDC emulator is not syncing
>> automatically.
>>
>
>