MORE INFORMATION
Top Level Time Source
The top level time source represents an accurate time source such as an
atomic clock. The Time Service Initialization file, Timeserv.ini, lists
many different sources for accurate clocks, that is, NISTACTS, USNO, NTP,
and so forth.
Primary Source (Masters of Time)
These computers get their time from a top level time source and are primary
time sources for the other computers on your Local Area Network (LAN). The
Type= line of the Timeserv.ini file should be set to one of the top level
time sources in order to be considered a primary time source. You can have
as many Primary Sources (Masters of Time) as you want on your network, but
it is usually sufficient to just have one.
Type=USNO
Secondary Source
These computers have their Type= line set to Primary and the PrimarySource=
line set to one (or more) of the primary sources separated by a semicolon.
Type=Primary
PrimarySource=\\NTPDC1;\\NTPDC2...
The secondary sources must have their TimeSource= line set to YES.
Setting the TimeSource=YES actually sets the timesource bit to true that
allows down-level clients to determine who the secondary time sources are.
Secondary clients issue a NetRemoteTOD API call to the primary source to
get their time set.
TimeSource=YES
Clients
Computers running Windows NT can get their time from either a primary
source or a secondary source. If a computer running Windows NT is to get
its time from a primary source, then it sets the Type= line to Primary as
explained above. However, computers running Windows NT can also get their
time from a Secondary Time Source. They do this by setting their Type= line
to Secondary.
Type=Secondary
By default, computers with their type set to Secondary use the
NetServerEnum API call to find servers with the timesource bit set that
belong to their own domain. You can specify a secondary domain with the
SecondaryDomain= section of the Timeserv.ini file.
SecondaryDomain="Place the workgroup or domain name here."
For computers not running the time service, the same thing happens when
they issue a NET TIME command without any paramaters (it searches its local
domain for a server with its timesource bit set to YES). To get the same
function as the SecondaryDomain, issue a NET TIME /DOMAIN:DOMAINNAME
(secondary domain) command.
Issuing a NET TIME \\SERVER /SET /Y command will cause the down-level
client to set its time with the computer specified whether it is a
registered timesource or not.
NOTE: Because the clients issue a NetServerEnum to enumerate the servers
with the timesource bit set to yes, it will adversely affect the Time
Service if browsing is not working properly on your network.