SCOUG-HELP Mailing List Archives

<< Previous Message << >> Next Message >>

Date:	Tue, 13 May 2003 21:55:13 PDT7
From:	Peter Skye <pskye@peterskye.com >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: More on setting clock from startup.cmd

Content Type: text/plain

=====================================================
If you are responding to someone asking for help who
may not be a member of this list, be sure to use the
REPLY TO ALL feature of your email program.
=====================================================

Sheridan George wrote:
>
> There is a whole bunch of chatter that I don't understand.
> I've been using a registered version of OS2NTPD for
> several years with excellent service.

Me too. It is, in my opinion, the best NTP program available.

> I have a shadow of it in the Startup folder
> causing it to start and run in the background.

Me too. :)

> Peter, why is Daytime needed?

I use DAYTIME to set the clock before OS2NTPD starts so that OS2NTPD has
less work to do and can therefore sync the clock quicker.

OS2NTPD changes the clock in small (1/60th second) increments so that
other programs don't get confused if they are running timers, checking
file creation date-times, etc.

Suppose your clock is off by a large amount when you boot. This could
happen if:

-- your hardware froze and you had to reboot, or
-- you boot to a different operating system that uses GMT instead of
local time, or
-- your computer has been off for a week while you were out of town, or
-- you somehow set the date to the wrong day meaning you are 24 hours
ahead or behind, or
-- your motherboard's clock battery is getting weak.

OS2NTPD will slowly correct the clock rather than making one large
correction. Usually OS2NTPD takes only a few seconds to synchronize the
clock but if the starting clock error is huge it can take 30-40 minutes
depending on whether the error is ahead or behind the actual time. I
tested OS2NTPD with the LOG function turned on to see how long it takes
to fix various errors and to resynchronize immediately after a Daylight
Saving change.

It's not good to have the clock unsynchronized for a short while after
bootup. If other programs start at the same time as OS2NTPD (typically
because you have several programs including OS2NTPD in your Startup
Folder) then all of these other programs will see incorrect times for a
few seconds to a few minutes while OS2NTPD straightens out a mis-set
clock. This might be undesirable if, for example, one of the other
programs creates a file and your date was one day behind -- the newly
created file might now have an *older* time stamp than one it created a
few hours ago. It can *really* be a problem if you run one of the
various Synchronize programs to copy files between, say, your desktop
and laptop or if (as I do) you use a Synchronize program to back up to
hard disk -- the Synchronize program will think the newer file is older
than the old file and delete the newer one.

To resolve this problem I set my clock with the program DAYTIME when I
boot. I run DAYTIME from STARTUP.CMD so that the clock is set before
OS2NTPD starts from my Startup Folder.

> What in the world am I missing?

Nothing of major importance. Just me showing off. :))

- Peter

=====================================================

To unsubscribe from this list, send an email message
to "steward@scoug.com". In the body of the message,
put the command "unsubscribe scoug-help".

For problems, contact the list owner at
"rollin@scoug.com".

=====================================================

Return to [ 13 | May | 2003 ]

SCOUG, Warp Expo West, and Warpfest are trademarks of the Southern California OS/2 User Group. OS/2, Workplace Shell, and IBM are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. All other trademarks remain the property of their respective owners.