CSCF Infrastructure Technology Group


CSI  » Setup Recipes  » Services  » System Time Synchronizing

Choice of Time Synchronizing Application

CSCF Infrastructure group strongly encourage the use of NTP to keep non-container systems time in sync with the multiple security logging and network file services used with in the School.

SNTP is NOT recommended unless it is the only method available. As RFC2030 SNTP RFC says: "SNTP is intended for primary servers equipped with a single reference clock, as well as for clients with a single upstream server and no dependent clients."

Information on CSCF's Network Time Protocol Support

CSCF provides NTP servers that anyone on Campus is welcome to query. Currently there are:
Stratum Level 1 Servers
 1     ntp.cs.uwaterloo.ca     129.97.15.14  
 2     ntp.cscf.uwaterloo.ca     129.97.15.15  
 3     ntp.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca     129.97.167.4  
 4     ntp.csclub.uwaterloo.ca     129.97.167.12  

Configuring Your System to Use CSCF's NTP Service

Linux Debian based systems:
Make sure the NTP package is installed on your host:
sudo apt-get -y install ntp
Install the CSCF ntp.conf file (if you're on the UW campus network) and restart the ntp service:
 
sudo wget https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/cscf/internal/infrastructure/setups/services/ntp/etc/ntp.conf -O /etc/ntp.conf
sudo service ntp restart
You can check that it is working with:
ntpq -p
MacOS systems:
NTP is part of the OS and by default it is "on" and references Apple's time services .
As part of using CSCF time service:
  1. Select "System Preferences" → "Date and time"
  2. Confirm that "Set date and time automatically" is "ticked"
  3. Fill in the "server box" with "ntp.csclub.uwaterloo.ca"
  4. Finally select "Time Zone" and if necessary, click on the Map specifying "Toronto - Canada" to get "Eastern (Daylight) Time"
Windows systems:
Windows contains a simple NTP package as part of the OS, the registry just needs the appropriate entry.
At a "cmd" prompt that has administrator privileges, enter:
net time /SETSNTP:ntp.csclub.uwaterloo.ca,ntp.cs.uwaterloo.ca,ntp.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca
Note that "net time" only accepts a maximum of three time servers.