I know that as of version 6.1 you are able to ener the IP for a NTP server to get the time and date. My question is, does this override the CMM’s suppied time and date? Because I would love to be able to have everything on local time, vs. GMT which is what the CMM provides.
Or on a related issue, why is it so hard for Motorola to build in a time zone feauture that can adjust the date and time on the AP’s based on a time zone setting? It’s just confusing to look at GMT time on some AP’s that are connected to a CMM vs. those that are not and are set manually to local time.
The NTP Server setting was also available in v4, but it’s still UTC. (UTC is “Coordinated Universal Time”. The “C” seems misplaced because the acronym is French; they’re to blame for antiquating the term GMT. The British should be furious.)
Canopy actually implements an SNTP (Simple Network Time Protocol) client; it obtains the time from a single server. NTP checks multiple servers, judges whether any of the servers should be dismissed as inaccurate, and averages the times from the others.
Someone in another post suggested the simple addition of a “+/-hours” field to adjust UTC to local time. Canopy Tech Support agreed to add the suggestion to its feature requests. Hopefully, Motorola will also include an automatic adjustment for Daylight Savings Time.
I’ve considered writing a modified (some would say bastardized) SNTP server program that gets its time from an official UTC source, adjusts the time to local, then presents the localized time to other SNTP clients (like Canopy units) as UTC. The Canopy units would then display local time. Daylight Savings alterations, unfortunately, would be missing; if they were added, the Event Log could potentially contain an ambiguous time: the entire 1:00 AM hour on 10-30-2005 will occur twice!
In some ways this issue is more appropriately addressed in centralized management software, rather than on the AP or BH. Allow the raw data to remain UTC, but display it localized. Of course, it’s more appropriate only if you have and use the software.
Panzer wrote: Take a look at this one it might just do the job for you.
Tardis 2000
Panzer
Thanks, but I am not sure how this helps. This is a utility that sets the time on your PC. That is not the problem here. The question/problem was is there a way to adjust the time and date on the AP to be local time vs. GMT? Am I missing something?
Teknix wrote: The NTP Server setting was also available in v4, but it's still UTC. (UTC is “Coordinated Universal Time”. The "C" seems misplaced because the acronym is French; they’re to blame for antiquating the term GMT. The British should be furious.)
Canopy actually implements an SNTP (Simple Network Time Protocol) client; it obtains the time from a single server. NTP checks multiple servers, judges whether any of the servers should be dismissed as inaccurate, and averages the times from the others.
Someone in another post suggested the simple addition of a "+/-hours" field to adjust UTC to local time. Canopy Tech Support agreed to add the suggestion to its feature requests. Hopefully, Motorola will also include an automatic adjustment for Daylight Savings Time.
I've considered writing a modified (some would say bastardized) SNTP server program that gets its time from an official UTC source, adjusts the time to local, then presents the localized time to other SNTP clients (like Canopy units) as UTC. The Canopy units would then display local time. Daylight Savings alterations, unfortunately, would be missing; if they were added, the Event Log could potentially contain an ambiguous time: the entire 1:00 AM hour on 10-30-2005 will occur twice!
In some ways this issue is more appropriately addressed in centralized management software, rather than on the AP or BH. Allow the raw data to remain UTC, but display it localized. Of course, it's more appropriate only if you have and use the software.
Thanks for the info. I am still unclear about my main question though. Does using NTP override the GPS time supplied by a CMM?
etech wrote:
Thanks, but I am not sure how this helps. This is a utility that sets the time on your PC. That is not the problem here. The question/problem was is there a way to adjust the time and date on the AP to be local time vs. GMT? Am I missing something?
It can be used as a time server as well. You should also be able to adjust the served time to local time after it has synced with an Internet time server like time.nist.gov. By telling your AP's which machine is running it, I should think you could serve local time to them. Tardis also support sync to GPS as well.
Linux also has NTP capabilities and you should be able to set it up to serve loacl time as well. Then simply point your AP's at the machine.
Panzer
Panzer wrote: [quote="etech":1t5lk3ox]
Thanks, but I am not sure how this helps. This is a utility that sets the time on your PC. That is not the problem here. The question/problem was is there a way to adjust the time and date on the AP to be local time vs. GMT? Am I missing something?
It can be used as a time server as well. You should also be able to adjust the served time to local time after it has synced with an Internet time server like time.nist.gov. By telling your AP's which machine is running it, I should think you could serve local time to them. Tardis also support sync to GPS as well.
Linux also has NTP capabilities and you should be able to set it up to serve loacl time as well. Then simply point your AP's at the machine.
Panzer[/quote:1t5lk3ox]
So ANY machine on a network can be a time server? You do not have to run anything sepcial on the machine to do that? So you are saying I can put the IP address of ANY machine on our network into an AP and it will get teh time from that machine?
I will give that a try. Thanks.
Well, I just tried that and it does not seem to work, which i think goes back to my original question, which is that it appears that when attached to a CMM, the GPS time takes over. Because no matter what IP address I put in the AP (I even tried invalid ones) it just gets the time from the GPS. I click on GET TIME FROM NTP and it updates the time, but it is still GMT.
So I am still hoping someone can confirm and/or suggest a workaround for this. Is there a way to supply an AP with a different time IF it is attached to a CMM.
Thanks.
etech wrote:
So ANY machine on a network can be a time server? You do not have to run anything sepcial on the machine to do that? So you are saying I can put the IP address of ANY machine on our network into an AP and it will get teh time from that machine?
I will give that a try. Thanks.
Any Machine yes, without doing anything NO. You need to run an NTP server. Tardis 2000 is such an animal :D. There are others. If you have a linux box in your NOC, you could even set up ntpd to run on it and use it to sync the AP's. But you do have to do some serring up first.
You can find info about NTP here.
Panzer wrote:
Any Machine yes, without doing anything NO. You need to run an NTP server. Tardis 2000 is such an animal :D. There are others. If you have a linux box in your NOC, you could even set up ntpd to run on it and use it to sync the AP's. But you do have to do some serring up first.
You can find info about NTP here.
Thanks I will look into that, BUT I think I still have a problem regarding the CMM. Anyone know the answer to this? It appears that the CMM will take over in terms of supplying the date and time, so all this would be useless.
Override CMM time:
According to Canopy Tech Support, a CMM Micro, with updated software, is an NTP server. You can set your APs and BHs “NTP Server IP Address” to the CMM Micro to get GPS time. Pointing the APs and BHs to another NTP server will give you whatever time that NTP server is passing out.
A CMM, however, is different. The GPS time is passed to the connected APs and BHs via pins 2&3 on the timing cable. You can disconnect these pins, but then you’ll also lose the “GPS Status” information. You’ll still maintain sync between APs and BHs because that’s done on pins 1&6.
If an AP is getting GPS time from a CMM, and it’s also pointing to an NTP server, it will actually get time settings from both: every 15 minutes from the NTP server, less often from GPS. If your NTP server is passing out local time, this means your AP’s time may occationally jump back and forth between local and UTC.
Tardis 2000 NTP server:
The Tardis 2000 software currently serves only UTC, but their tech support has indicated a willingness to modify the program to serve an adjusted time. I’m not convinced I’d want this unless it also automatically adjusted for Daylight Savings Time. The double hour in the Fall would still be a problem.
Linux NTP server:
I don’t know if Linux has the capability to serve local or adjusted time.
The bottom line:
I’m still convinced this issue is better addressed by a separate piece of software that takes UTC Event Log entries and displays or reports them in local time.
Thank you very much for the info. I will be changing out an old CMM for a CMM Micro soon, so that will help with my problem. I can live with the error cuased by the Daylight savings issue I think.
Thanks again.