Have you noticed that Windows Server clock is not synchronized with external source?
I had a case when customer called me that their clock is 5 minutes late.
Server 2003 was not configured to sync with external NTP source. Difference with internal clock and external clock was 5 minutes. Not cool. Possibly that System time was not updating with domain.
At first I thought that customer’s clock was not accurate, but when I checked time on my watch, I knew there was some thing wrong. Usually the clock on the client is synchronized with domain.
Here is the procedure that I have used to solve the problem and Synchronize NTP server to external source
Active directory domain is providing time to it’s clients. That’s why it’s really important to have AD domain synchronized with a reliable source. There is a reliable NTP project called NTP Pool. Project has over 3900 NTP servers spread around the world in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania and South America. You can easily find the closest mirror to you, in most cases in the same country.
I have tested this solution on a Windows server 2003 SP2, 2008, 2008R2 and confirm that it works. To implement it, you only need around 5 minutes.
First you need to discover which server is domain authoritative.
This is important because the other DC sync from that one.
Step 1
To find authoritative server type:
netdom query fsmo
you will get the name of the server which is authoritative. Connect to that server
Step 2
To find out time difference between external source and your domain type:
w32tm /stripchart /computer:us.pool.ntp.org /samples:5 /dataonly
you will get difference in time between your DC and external NTP server. Output will look something like this:
Tracking us.pool.ntp.org [69.50.219.51].
Collecting 5 samples.
The current time is 15.1.2013 14:15:41 (local time).
14:15:41, +05.3702315s
14:15:43, +05.3703289s
14:15:45, +05.3720366s
14:15:47, +05.3746750s
14:15:50, +05.3777263s
Step 3
type:
w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:us.pool.ntp.org,0×8, /syncfromflags:manual /update
This command will configure your DC to use external NTP server for source.
Type:
w32tm /resync /nowait
this will resync immediately with external NTP server.
Once this is done you can resync computer with your DC
type:
w32tm /resync /nowait /computer:computername
Step 4
To confirm that time is synchronized type: w32tm /stripchart /computer:us.pool.ntp.org /samples:5 /dataonly
you will receive output similar to this one:
Tracking us.pool.ntp.org [142.54.181.202].
Collecting 5 samples.
The current time is 15.1.2013 14:20:51 (local time).
14:20:51, +00.0821778s
14:20:53, +00.0745581s
14:20:55, +00.0728673s
14:20:57, +00.0710335s
14:20:59, +00.0697048s
Hopefully this will save you some time
How Windows time service works – Link to MS Technet
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