I count at least 3 ways offered in OpenSuSE 11.3 to configure NTP,
KDE Desktop Personalize
YAST NTP
YAST Date & Time
Do all configure the same NTP module or do two or more configure separate modules and therefor could cause contention?
Maybe a fourth method to configure by Command Line only might be considered the only method any SysAdmin would considered standard…
TIA,
Tony
I configured it via Yast and I think both modules do (almost) the same.
I’m not sure what the KDE module does, because as far as I know, normal user
do not have the permission to change the system time.
If you have more than one user, use YAST otherwise I think the KDE module
would do, too.
I looked in KDE, but nowhere I can find anything about NTP. Only the setting of the time zone the end user wants to have his desktop environment in.
In YaST > System > Date and time, there is also nowhere a place to configure NTP. It only warns you there that NTP is used in the system. It sets the default timezone for the system. Users can change from this by setting the appropriate variables in their environment e.g. in their .profile or in the KDE config discussed above.
NTP is configured in YaST > Network Services > NTP Configuration. You can not only configure there, but YaST will friendly switch it on/off from there and there is no need to go for the last paragraph of this post to do the switching. When switched on, the clock of your system is synchronised with the outside world. This is always done in UTC (as the whole of Unix/Linux runs in UTC).
In YaST > System > System services (runlevel) you can switch NTP on/off without further configuration. As said, the NTP configuration above will be able to do this also.
About your last paragraph. Of course there is a way to configure NTP as root from the CLI. YaST is only an interface to this. Editing /etc/ntp.conf to make a working configuration (the same as YaST does). Starting (and switching on for starting at boot) NTP like very other init.d service with the appropriate rc… tools (again YaST does this easy and wonderfull).
On 2010-10-13 17:36, tsu2 wrote:
>
> I count at least 3 ways offered in OpenSuSE 11.3 to configure NTP,
>
> KDE Desktop Personalize
It does not configure NTP, AFAIK.
> YAST NTP
Yes. That’s one.
> YAST Date & Time
It does not configure NTP.
> Maybe a fourth method to configure by Command Line only might be
> considered the only method any SysAdmin would considered standard…
Yes, you can also configure it yourself by hand.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)
Configure Desktop, Date &Time lets you set an NTP server, similar to Windows.
Uwe
Having 11.2 and KDE 4.3.5 I can not see any reference to NTP on that page http://www.xs4all.nl/~hcvv/date-time.png (I hope we mean the same 
). In any case, when it would be (or is in your case is) there, setting the dat the time zone is an end-user action and should only be for that one user, but changing date/time, including configuring/starting NTP is a system thing and thus an administrator (root) task.
As you want to compare this with Windows (I do not know why), I have heard that in Windows the difference between end-user settings and system settings is blurred. That could explain the mixup of these in the Windows case. But this is only wild guessing from my side because I have no experience/knowledge in Windows.
Thx all.
I do wonder if the comments in this thread are more likely based though on our longer experience with SuSE, and therefor are used to configuring everything in YAST. I’ve never noticed this type of setting in KDE before so is probably new.
Correcting and clarifying the above comments, it is possible to configure NTP in YAST > Date & Time…
To access the NTP configuration you only need to click on the “Change…” button in the lower right.
Also FYI – On Windows boxes time sync configuration is considered a System type utility but I don’t remember it needs special permission to configure (maybe some very minor elevated permissions). Ordinarily on a standalone machine it will sync according to the local configuration. In a Windows Domain, the machine is sync’d automatically with the DC when the machine first is recognized (eg powered on) in the network, but if the machine is off by too much before connecting to the DC, that in itself can cause connection problems(I think that’s supposed to be the case for most LDAP systems).
IMO considering the ad hoc approach to cobbling together a Linux system, someone needs to look at this kind of situation and verify and possibly blacklist system utilities that are more than just GUIs on common modules. Until that happens, I wonder if it’s possible to blacklist at least the KDE utility through policy…
Tony
I’m confused I see no NTP option in the KDE date/time. This allows a user to set their date/time for their account. this is not system level but user level. Consider the Linux is multi-user thus a user account may be a remote connection from a different time zone. But we would not want this remote user setting the system time. The system time can only be set and configured by root.
Thx, your response is absolutely to the point with this topic, and your scenario is something to keep in mind.
So, at least this one Time/Date setting is different than the others and with a specific purpose.
Tony
Why would you be surprised to not see NTP in KDE date/time? Using NTP for system time sync is a system level control and rightly belongs in YaST.
Where is this? Is this something new in 11.3?
First time I’ve seen it, but I skipped 11.2 (I don’t remember it in 11.0, 11.1)
Specifically, this is in KDE 4.4.4.
Tony
I’m on KDE 4.5, so checking hccv’s screenshot, I assume it is new.
When you set an NTP server, KDE asks for the root password once, so I assume it will run with super user rights from there on.
Uwe
@tsu2
I hope your conclusion from the above is:
there is but one NTP client (and this is contrary to your belief when you composed he title of your thread) and that runs as the deamon ntpd in your system. It is btw also the NTP server when your system wants to serve NTP synchronisation to other systems. It’s main configuration file is */etc/ntp.conf *(but there are more).
Configuring and starting ntpd and configuring thee system in a way that it will be started on boot is to be done by root as for every system service. There may be many tools to help you here. YaST is of course prominent in openSUSE, but other tools, either from the CLI or from a GUI may exist. Thus also KDE may have such an interface, but in the end they all configure and use ntpd and have to atain rroot privilidge. When you want to see what they do, you could e.g. look in /etc/ntp.conf after configuring (and unconfiguring) with all of the tools you can find, but I bet there will not be much difference.
Setting system date/time manualy is also something that can only bedone by root. But when you have a functioning NTP client there is no need to do this manualy.
Date/time in Unix/Linux is done in seconds since the epoch (see Unix time - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and is allways in UTC. Take e.g. a timestamp of a “fiile last changed” that is stored with other metadata about that file in a directory.
As people are not very good in interpreting these timestamps, they are presented in a date/time format that can highly be customised by the user. The customising includes the taking into account of a time zone. Most users will choose the timezone they live in. These timezones are not the 24 parallel zones, but are zones which have the same date/time, daylight saving time (or summer time) and include thus zones which are not whole hour setoffs from UTC (like India). They are defined by governements of the several countries in this world and thus undergo changes from time to time. That is why you will find now and then a new timezone table in your Update repo. This conversion system also “knows” that a country had no summer time e.g. twenty years ago and will thus display the representation of a file stamp from such a moment correct. This is of course a user setting (sorry, but I wouldn’t like you to decide how I want to see data/time in my sessions). And is thus user configurable (like currency symbol, decimal point and all those Locality setttings). Of course, when a user is created by root defaults are available.
And of course, remembering that Unix/Linuix is a multiuser system will opften help in determining if something will be a “sysem setting” or a “user setting”.
Since yesterday,
I decided to run some simple tests regarding whether “user level” time zone configuration is truly supported.
First, I determined that no matter what tool was used for whatever desired result, root permissions were required “according to local system policy.” That might mean that all tools are supposed to manipulate ntpd or it might mean that some configurable local system policy requires root even for user level time zone changes, I could not find a security policy this granular and specific to this setting so the result is unclear.
Second, I initially was excited to perhaps get an answer why when my OpenSuSE was initially installed, it insisted on being 3 hrs off the machine, then for some unknown reason fixed itself over the first 24 hrs… All in defiance of anything I tried in YAST. Could User Level time zone configuration actually exist?
So, I started changing time zones alternating between the KDE tool and the YAST Date/Time to see if I could configure different time zones for different Users on the same machine. Initially when the time zone configuration was made, it seemed to work. Then, after that it all went messy and nothing was consistent or “stuck.” I don’t know that even the initial configuration which seemed to support User Level (Account) settings is stable because I didn’t leave it set that long before trying to re-configure.
So, I’m left with only the following conclusions to date
Tony
On 2010-10-16 21:06, tsu2 wrote:
> - If User Level time zone configurations are supposed to be supported,
> it’s unreliable
I have been doing it reliably for years, and root password is not required. Look:
cer@Telcontar:~> TZ=“Asia/Tokyo” date
Sun Oct 17 04:42:05 JST 2010
cer@Telcontar:~> TZ=“Europe/Dublin” date
Sat Oct 16 20:42:23 IST 2010
cer@Telcontar:~> TZ=“Europe/Berlin” date
Sat Oct 16 21:42:35 CEST 2010
Different hours and timezones, as user. If I set the TZ variable in my environment, my desktop
(Gnome) would pull it and display the time accordingly. Or, I can choose one in the time applet.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)
By “profession” I am a a bit sceptic when someone states something without realy showing what the computer system does. So, please Tony, do show extensive what you brought to the conclusion “it’s unreliable”. Like Carlos not only tell us he thinks it is functioing properly, but show us in a way everybody can replay on his system.
Well,
I think there are a few things happening here.
First, as anyone should know you get what you pay for sometimes in Forum based assistance. By that, I mean that it’s always YMMV, people are describing their experiences, and I think I’ve described a situation where GUI Timezone settings may be inconsistent with System Timezone settings and the steps I tested that likely caused this situation.
Call it what you may, I think the situation is reporducible and anyone who duplicates the steps I tested but still gets the desired result is welcome to call me a liar, I’m usually not that sensitive to criticism.
Lastly, I do not know that Carlos configured his Timezones using the PersonalSettings/Configure Desktop applet which was the method suggested that should have enabled User Level Timezone settings(The whole point of my Testing). If User Level Timezone settings are configurable using another method, that would be good to know but up until now was not already covered in this thread (at least IMHO).
Thx always,
Tony
Sorry tsu2, but it seems that we are both talking a complete different language. I have reread all your posts in this thread and nowhere I could find any description of what you clicked, what sort of windows opened what you decided to click then and what the results of all this where. Failing this I can not reconstruct, discuss or come to conclusions (is this a bug, is there a misunderstanding, did you do something wrong, or whatever) and I will thus stop posting here.
Also I have the idea that all the posts above that try to explain:
. the difference between using the NTP deamon for keeping your system synchronised with the outside world and the usage of time zones by users;
. that every user on the system (root included) has his own timezone definition which with (s)he sees and defines timestamps (of course root and one or more users may use incidently the same timezone and that is very likely when one or more users are using the system from the same country);
are not completely understood by you. That may be due to the fact that the explanation is lousy, but let us assume everybody did his best.
