In my BorderManager books, I have at one time had examples for using RDATE to set the time on a server to a time server on the Internet. (I still prefer it to TIMESYNC.NLM attempting to
do NTP reliably on Nw 5.x, but timesync is better on 6.x).
My example for RDATE pointed to a US National Institute of Standards time server located in Boulder, Colorado. That server appears to have gone off line, permanently, in February, 2002. Your server
will show repeated failed attempts to connect to the configured time server.
Not to worry. There are still time servers out there which reply to UDP port 37 requests. I found the following addresses on the Internet, using time servers located at the Stanford University, in
California. (You should try to find time servers close to your location, partly for the time variables involved, but mostly to spread the load).
You can try the following RDATE load line, which will attempt to connect to the first of the three configured addresses. If that server does not respond, RDATE should try the next one, and then the
last one.
LOAD RDATE /v 2 /p 240 /m 9999999 /u 171.64.7.77 /u 171.64.7.99 /u 171.64.7.55
/v 2 = allow two second variance
/p 240 = check every 240 minutes
/m <large number> = maximum number of seconds server can be different from time server and have RDATE still change the time
/u = UDP protocol (port 37 is used)
x.x.x.x = time server IP address
Aug. 28, 2002: RDATE is freeware. I used to get it from http://alw.murkworks.com, but that site was down for a while. If it is not up, you can download RDATE from HERE.
NetWare 6, with NW6SP1 and later installed, has a problem with RDATE. Basically, it doesn't work properly, and time may be an hour off. However, timesync.nlm finally seems to work
decently with NTP. If you want to set internet time using NTP, on NW6SP1 or later, you can set your single reference or reference server to point to the IP address for TIME.NIST.GOV, which is
192.43.244.18:123. (Be sure to add the :123).
You will need to allow outbound UDP destination port 123, and source ports 1023-65535. (The source port changed from earlier versions of timesync.nlm, which used source and destination ports 123. In
NetWare 6, you can specify the source port if you like).