Solaris™ Operating Environment Boot Camp

Which Is Best?

Rdate is easy to understand and implement and, once the clocks are synchronized, should be accurate enough for most situations. The clock adjustment is harsh in that if the client's clock is incorrect, rdate will simply reset it. This can produce problems if the date needs to be set backwards, since log entries can become mismatched, which can cause problems with some applications.

NTP is more complex to understand, but once configured requires virtually no maintenance and each client will be very accurate relative to each other. The advantages are that a number of servers can be configured and if the main server is later upgraded from a local clock to a more accurate device, the clients will benefit without any alteration. Its ...