Note: SNTS is not actively developed or maintained. NTP has markedly improved is usability and ease of configuration - we suggest using it now

SNTS is a simple, fast, and low overhead time syncronization systems for LANs. It is designed as a simple replacement for timed with better control and better portability (for systems without a standard adjtime() call, such as Linux).

SNTS is split into two main components:

• snts - The SNTS client
• sntsd - The SNTS server

SNTS allows multiple groupings of servers and clients on a network for independent time management for labs. SNTS also supports multiple servers in a single group, with elections choosing a master and other servers becoming bloated clients, until the server should shut down where a slave will become master. SNTS works on broadcast networks under IP datagrams (UDP). Security is minimal, as SNTS is designed for simplicity. No lag negotiation is done as SNTS runs on low latency LANs, not higher latency remote connections.

A machine which would act as the master SNTS time server should be picked. Syncing this computer's clock via NTP is advised. The client program 'snts' should be distributed to each client running SNTS. The server and client should be run at boot time via rc files or inittab, whatever your system has. SNTS will then broadcast time syncs over the network and set them on the clients. Multiple servers are supported, but through an imperfect system, they choose a master (namely, the machine which does a normal time broadcast first) and let that machine broadcast, while the servers act as clients and set their time to the broadcasting server.

News

• June 3rd, 2002: Version 1.0.4 - Fixed Linux signal handling bugs. May actualy work with more versions of glibc now.
• November 19th, 2000: Version 1.0.3 - applied a patch from Valts Silaputnins. The IP address to bind to on the server can now be set with the -a option.
• October 8th, 2000: Version 1.0.2 - new random seeding system, a few segfault bug fixes, dusted off code.
• April 18th, 2000: Version 1.0.1 - a few buffer over-run errors fixed, messages on NetBSD squelched (pid xxx tried setting the (obsolete) kernel time zone).
• March, 7th, 2000: First release

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