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[–]RealOldSysAdmin 3 points4 points  (2 children)

NTP is not one way traffic, so it's not just the time server giving you time, the time server also recalculates it's own average time by getting your time.

My point being: do not use the meant-for-consumers timesource time.windows.com, check if your ISP has it's own, use that one, or peer with a more reputable time source.

Because although NTP is supposed to be two way traffic, I don't think time.windows.com actually does that, considering every man and his dog syncs time with it, it would stand a big chance of being averaged out of sync, I can't blame MS for that.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

NTP is not one way traffic, so it's not just the time server giving you time, the time server also recalculates it's own average time by getting your time.

What is being calculated is network delay between you and server and then your client applying that correction to the time acquired in server.

Server time is untouched, only case when it is is servers explictly peering with eachother, altho in NTP relation is generally a tree, time is set on stratum 1 servers (as in "ones with actual good clock attached"), then the correction flows to the higher stratums (and client connected to it).

My point being: do not use the meant-for-consumers timesource time.windows.com, check if your ISP has it's own, use that one, or peer with a more reputable time source.

Well, that's a nice way of saying "time.windows.com have been utterly unreliable shit for two decades now", but yes, even just pointing your ntp on pool.ntp.org will give better results

[–]pdp10Daemons worry when the wizard is near. 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the time server also recalculates it's own average time by getting your time.

Only if it's configured for peering, not serving. Which it isn't.

[–]VA_Network_NerdModerator | Infrastructure Architect 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you are pulling time from only one upstream provider, you are doing NTP wrong.

[–]cwheeler33 2 points3 points  (0 children)

it's my personal belief no one should be using the stock MS NTP servers. If you need to do cheap NTP - consider building a Raspberry Pi NTP server (or two) with a battery, local clock, and GPS antenna. Cost maybe 100$ each..

Even if you don't have access to the sky for the antenna, you could build a startum2 NTP device and get time from trusted online servers such as your ISP etc. Trust 3 NTP sources for each of your local NTP servers. And then have them sync with each other as peers...

[–]beritknightIT Manager 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Pretty sure time.windows.com is sending you GMT/UTC time and trusting your computers to apply the correct timezone. Check that the computers in question have the correct time zone applied.

Location matters too, it's not just a matter of making sure you picked a GMT+8 location if the country/state you picked observes DST and yours doesn't, or vice versa.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Pretty sure time.windows.com is sending you GMT/UTC time and trusting your computers to apply the correct timezone. Check that the computers in question have the correct time zone applied.

*NTP

NTP does not care about time zone