In BS2000, NTP time synchronization can either be performed continuously using the NTP daemon ntpd or in a single operation using the ntpdate program. (In the long term the ntpdate program is to be replaced by calling ntpd with the -q option. It is consequently recommendable to use ntpd.) How you set the date and time with the ntpdate program is described in the section “Setting the date and time via NTP with the ntpdate program” on "Setting the date and time via NTP with the ntpdate program".
ntpd and ntpdate both use port number 123. Only one of the applications can therefore run at any given time.
Addressing clocks
In BS2000-POSIX only the system clock of the local computer can be configured as a reference clock. However, if possible the system clock should not be used as the clock, even if it is synchronized with external clocks via the SKP or the carrier system. The reason for this is that in this case synchronization is only accurate to the second. Instead, by means of NTP the same external clocks or partner computers should if possible be used as are used by the carrier system’s SKP.
If BS2000 is part of an XCS network (see manual „HIPLEX MSCF“), you should nevertheless configure the system clock as an additional clock using the server configuration statement. In doing so, the system clock is assigned stratum 5 by default, which can be increased using the fudge statement. If the configured NTP servers can no longer be reached, for example, the local NTP server would remain on the last stratum value reached if the system clock is not configured. If a system clock is configured to stratum 5 as the clock, the local NTP server drops to stratum 6, which means that other time synchronization mechanisms may be used (especially those of the XCS network).
Further information is provided in the chapter "System time administration" in the manual "BS2000 - System Administration".
Clocks are addressed analogously to partner hosts by using pseudo IP addresses, which are invalid as normal IP addresses. The following section describes how clocks are configured using the server and fudge configuration statements.