NTP sync frequency

A one-time synchronization that you describe would be useless as the clocks would just drift apart. NTP actively maintains synchronization between peers. The polling interval is actually variable. I'm assuming that the Nion uses a standard NTP implementation; here's a link from the NTP web page for additional information on the polling interval:

http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/ht … .html#poll

I'm not familiar with what YATS32 is, but the omnipotent Google declares it as some type of time sync software. I don't know what events cause it to make a log entry, but if you want the real story I would suggest heating up Wireshark and watching traffic from the Nion directed to UDP port 123 on the timeserver. Also take into account what provides time for this host running YAT32. If it doesn't have a source to 'real' time, you haven't gained anything by syncing your Nion to just another unsynchronized time source.

I would not expect changing the timezone to have any effect on NTP; NTP distributes UTC(universal coordinated time), which is the same all over the world. This is why computer clocks should be set to UTC and not local time. The OS then interprets this time based on the selected timezone for presentation to the user.

What battle do you have with the corporate firewall? A typical Nion NTP application should only require outgoing access to a small set of hosts on a single UDP port; no inbound access is required. Depending on the size of the facility, an IT department worth its salt probably already has a time source on their internal network available for private hosts. If nothing of that sort exists and they have a truly draconian firewall policy, there are a couple of ways to get real time for your Nions(and other NTP needy devices). You can run ntpd connected to a radio clock:

http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/html/refclock.html

There are also several stand alone GPS based time servers available:

http://www.veracityglobal.com/products/ … menet.aspx
http://www.timetools.co.uk/ntp-servers/ … server.htm

Hi Phil-

Look in the Remote Log of the NION in question in NWare. After you enable polling for the NION(s) in question, right click in the Remote Log and choose "Filter". This is set to "note" by default. You want to switch it to "verbiage" instead. As you know, this filter shows (or does not show, depending on setting) messages according to the minimum severity setting.

You should see the message "Time set" as an entry in the Remote log indicating when that NION was syncronized with the rest. One node on your network should be configured as the "Time Server" and it should have the link to whatever time source you desire to use. Please have a look at this page in the help files: http://peaveyoxford.com/kc/index.htm#9016 It contains some very important information regarding how to configure a node on the network to contact an external time source.

Because of people complaining about the message "Time set" filling up their logs after a proper syncronization with NTP was implemented in the NIONs, the "Time set" message was downgraded to "verbiage" so it would not always be shown in the remote log. Every time the NION syncs with the master time clock on the network, there is a message in the remote log.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

That "syncs" with what I know about Network Time Protocol.  (Get it, sync.  Ha ha).