NTP – Standalone NTP Server

You probably already know that having an accurate time set on all clients and servers is important. Very bad things happen when computer clocks disagree. Things like:

• Users cannot log on to a domain
• Applications overwrite new data with older versions
• Servers fail to synchronize data between each other, causing version conflicts
• Financial transactions become subject to dispute
• Regulatory requirements are not met

Enabling the NTP server service requires a quick registry modification. Open Regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ System \ CurrentControlSet \ Services \ W32Time \ TimeProviders \ NtpServer and change Enabled from 0 to 1.

he last step is to update the Windows Time service’s running configuration. You do this by opening a command prompt and typing the w32tm /config /update command. You can then verify that the NTP server service is enabled with the w32tm /query /configuration command. Both of these are shown in Figure 4.