How do I configure a windows domain controller to use an external time server?

Solution 1:

A Windows 2003 server which is a dc and has the pdc role will be set by default to syncronise it's time with time.microsoft.com. If you wish to use a different sntp time server you can issue this command at the command promt

net time /setsntp:FQDN

where FQDN is replaced by the time server name. It may take several minutes for this to take effect.

Solution 2:

This needs to be done on the DC with the PDC emulator role

To configure the Windows Time service on the PDC emulator

  Type the following command to configure the PDC emulator and then press ENTER:

  w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:peers /syncfromflags:manual /reliable:yes /update

  where peers specifies the list of DNS names and/or IP addresses of the NTP time source that the PDC emulator synchronizes from. For example, you can specify time.windows.com. When specifying multiple peers, use a space as the delimiter and enclose them in quotation marks.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc786897.aspx

Solution 3:

I would have thought configuring it via the normal method would work?

  1. Double click the clock
  2. Internet Time tab
  3. Enter the servers and hit update, I'm for example using 0.pool.uk.ntp.org which I've always assumed propagated to the domain clients.