Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some common asked question
-
SNTPCLNT.TIL
not found or open error
- SNTPCLN4 and SNTPCLN5 have a built
in system to calculate the current drift of the server clock(s). Based
on those drift-values a new ticklength is calculated and stored to the
file SYS:ETC/SNTPCLNT.TIL When doing a fresh installation, this file
does not exist and under this condition warning message is displayed.
The sntpclnt.til file will be created as soon as a new ticklength is
calculated. This requires 5-8 small timecorrections in sequence. In
addition, all those timecorrections MUST have the same sign (either
positive or negative) otherwise it's just to unsure to calculate a new
ticklength. In this case the system just waits until the conditions
mentioned above are meet.
-
Problems with activationkeys
- Sometimes applying a key to
sntpclnt.cfg and/or the NLM file still gives bad or expired
activationkey. Here the correct way to install a license: SNTPCLN3.NLM
: Use regkey.exe to write the license in the NLM file
direcly. Puting the license in the CFG may/may not work depending on
the actuall key issued to you. SNTPCLN4/5.NLM :
Always put the license key in the SNTPCLNT.CFG file. (This file
should be located in the SYS:ETC directory, unless you specify
something else on the commandline. Using the REGKEY.EXE utility is
depreciated on the SNTPCLN4/5 NLM's
-
Servers getting the time from a server
who has SNTPCLNx.NLM loaded are always getting in/out of sync
- When the "slave" servers
are always getting in/out of timesync, then most probably your server
has got a less accurate ticklength.
By default after 8 time corrections (and at least 0.5sec of corrected
time) a new ticklength is calculated.
If you have set the resync intervall to 24hours, it will take AT LEAST
8 days, before a new ticklength is calculated and your network becomes
stabler again.
For this reason it is recomended to NOT set the resync intervall to
more than 1-2 hours.
In a future release we will implement a algorithm who determines the
resync intervall based on the current time differences with the time
servers. So when everything is running smooth the resync intervalls
will grow, and when the time differences are getting larger it will
poll more often. (Such a algorithm is implemented in the NTP servers)
-
Year 2000
- Sntpclnt3.nlm, sntpcln4.nlm in the
versions 1.1, 1.1b and 1.5 are fully year 2000 compliant. But please
note that V1.1 is no longer supported.
-
Running SNTPCLNT behind a firewall
- When you have a firewall, you must
enable traffic on port 123/UDP for incomming/outgoing traffic. (The
datagramsize is 48Bytes)