The distance from the reference clock is known as the stratum levels and they exist to prevent cycles in the NTP and confirm accuracy. Stratum 0 are devices such as atomic clocks connected directly to a computer. Stratum 1 are computers attached to stratum 0 devices (like via a GPS receiver), while Stratum 2 are computers that send NTP requests to Stratum 1 servers. NTP can support up to 256 strata.

All Microsoft Windows versions since 2000 include the Windows Time Service (w32time.exe) which has the ability to synchronise the computer clock to an NTP server. It should be noted that Microsoft recommend that external time references are used rather than Internet based ones as these can’t be authenticated. Specialist NTP servers are available that can synchronise time on networks using either the MSF (or equivalent) or GPS signal.

Page 2 of 2 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 | Next