EndRun Sonoma N12, User Manual

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S o n o m a U s e r M a n u a l 20
C H A P T E R T H R E E
21 S o n o m a U s e r M a n u a l
N E T W O R K T I M E P R O T O C O L ( N T P )
Setting Up NTP Clients on
Unix-like Platforms
To configure your Unix-like computer to use your Sonoma Time Server, you must have success-
fully completed the NTP Server basic installation procedure described above. It is expected that you
are, or have access to, a capable Unix/Linux system administrator and know more than a little about
installing distributions from source code. Installation must be performed by a user with root privi-
ledges on the system.
If you have access to a usenet news server, many problems may be solved by the helpful people who
participate in the Internet news group devoted to NTP at comp.protocols.time.ntp .
Three methods of using the Sonoma with NTP clients on Unix-like platforms will be described:
Basic: This is the simplest, and will operate without MD5 authentication. NTP beginners should
always perform this setup first
.
MD5:
This method is trickier only because MD5 keys must be set up and distributed accurately to
the NTP clients in a secure way. The Sonoma is factory configured to authenticate its replies to NTP
MD5 clients using its default set of keys.
Broadcast/Multicast:
This method simplifies configuration of the clients on large networks since
specific server addresses need not be configured in each client’s /etc/ntp.conf file. It can be config-
ured either with or without MD5 authentication. However, it is highly recommended that authentica-
tion be configured when using broadcast/multicast mode due to the relative ease with which a fake
NTP server can take over the clock setting of the broadcast/multicast clients on the network.
Unix-like Platforms: Basic NTP Client Setup
Basic setup is relatively simple, if:
• You have been able to successfully communicate with the Sonoma on your network.
• You have installed NTP on your client computer.
Configure NTP
You must edit the
ntp.conf
file which
ntpd
, the NTP daemon, looks for by default in the the
/etc
directory. Add this line to the ntp.conf file:
server 192.168.1.120
This line tells
ntpd
to use the NTP server at address 192.168.1.120 in addition to any other servers
which might also be configured in the client’s ntp.conf file.
Restart
ntpd
to have it begin using the Sonoma server. Use the NTP utility
ntpq
to check that
ntpd
is able to communicate with the Sonoma. After issuing the command
ntpq
you will see the
ntpq
command prompt: