IT Services offers network time services to UCLA. These services allow your Macintosh, Windows, or Unix workstation to obtain and maintain accurate time.

General information on time services can be found at the Network Time Protocol Project.

Internet Time Protocols
There are three Internet time protocols:

The Time Protocol (RFC 868) provides a simple way for a system to poll for the current time from a time server.

The Network Time Protocol, or NTP (RFC 1305), is a much more sophisticated protocol which allows a system to continuously synchronize its clock against multiple time servers (to protect against transiently misbehaving servers), with adjustment for network latency and clock drift.

The Simple Network Time Protocol, or SNTP (RFC 1769), is a simplified RFC 1305 implementation for clients. This allows a client to take advantage of some of the features of an RFC1305 service without a full RFC1305 implementation.

RFC 1305 (or RFC 1769 if appropriate) should always be used in preference over RFC 868 wherever possible.

What are UCLA's time servers?
UCLA operates four time servers that support NTP:

time1.ucla.edu - 164.67.62.194 (stratum 1)
time2.ucla.edu - 164.67.62.212 (stratum 1)
time3.ucla.edu - 164.67.62.198 (stratum 2)
time4.ucla.edu - 164.67.62.213 (stratum 2)

As IP addresses are subject to change, always use the host name in preference to the IP address if possible. Unfortunately, some time software will only accept an IP address.