NTP Time Server settings removed using bootcamp

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Level 1

9 points

NTP Time Server settings removed using bootcamp

There is another discussion on this but its archived, making it virtually useless to get help about it or provide further input. More Apple foresight, I suppose. Unfortunately, I can't browser to it at the time since the discussions tool seems to like to keep sending me back here. Wow... That's okay. It's five years old. Nice to see it has not been fixed, or if it has, it is now back in Lion with a vengence.

My problem is this:

I have several OSX Lion clients that have boot camp installed on them with Windows 7 alteregos. Let's ignore for a moment the problems associated with Lion and Active Directory (what is Apple thinking, etc.) and move on the the problem with NTP server settings. Every time the computer switches back from the Windows 7 environment, Apple seems to feel that it is in our best interests to reset the NTP settings and the time to some arbitrary date and time rather than preserve the original settings. The problem with this is that we filter all other time servers on our network as should all organizations. So OSX thinks its some weird date and time when you try to log in. The result is the inability to authenticate with Active Directory credentials or in any LDAP environment for that matter.

I have heard of Workgroup Manager's ability to set NTP settings on computer groups to force the settings change at boot up, but it seems to me that the bug needs to be reported so it can be fixed rather than applying a constant workaround. If only keeping the time settings when switching back and forth between OS's in Boot Camp was actually what Apple fealt was in our best interests rather than the opposite.

OSX Lion-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on May 1, 2012 9:26 AM

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Answer 1

JoeyR

Level 6

8,315 points

May 1, 2012 10:06 AM in response to lucid green

The problem with the switching time isn't an issue with Apple (or OS X). Windows sets the system to local time, so the harware time is always set to the local time. OS X uses a Greenwich Mean Time offset. It sets the time to Greenwich Mean Time then applies an offset (the difference in the number of hours from GMT) to display the local time (which is how most operating systems other than Windows handle time). As both Windows and OS X like to automatically update their time, when you switch back and forth between them, you'll end up seeing a time difference that matches the number of hours in the GMT offset.

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Answer 2

lucid green Author

Level 1

9 points

May 1, 2012 11:46 AM in response to JoeyR

I never have trouble with the time settings in Windows since those settings seem to stick between boot ups. So the machine knows to update the time.

In OSX, what you said makes sense because it does add 7 hours. However, this doesn't explain why OSX Lion likes to reset my time sever settings that I had to manually set in System Preferences. It goes so far as to uncheck the box and set the time server settings back to the default apple time server. This doesn't help since external NTP traffic is blocked. So what I can't understand is why this would be an desired action, when there is no clear reason for this to even occur.

Changing the setting in Snow Leopard always worked.

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