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Accepted
JL.
Asked: 2009-07-29 03:43:19 +0800 CST

Public free time server

  • 772

I need to get the current datetime from a reliable source, because its likely that the local system time could be changed.

Is it possible to get this from an internet time server, one that has close to 100% uptime, preferably via a webservice method, something that is free, and I have to stress absolutely reliable?

I would hope an offering from Microsoft, or the organisation responsible for keeping global time.

time

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Give a try to:

    http://www.pool.ntp.org/zone/

    It has a pool of NTP servers which provides accurate time data.

    NTP is a protocol so you can write easily a client to query the time.

    • 18

  2. Pretty much every web server will tell you the time.

    $ telnet www.google.com 80
    Trying 74.125.224.52...
    Connected to www.google.com.
    Escape character is '^]'.
    GET /moose HTTP/1.0
    Host: www.google.com

    HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found
    Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
    X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
    Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 08:58:28 GMT
    Server: sffe
    Content-Length: 11793
    X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
    ...

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  3. www.pool.ntp.org is a web page that guides you through which pool of servers you should use (which is closer to you). The NTP pool contains large number of servers, so it's very unlikely that you'll stumble upon on a non-working server; very recommended. HTTP will never deliver precise time like NTP.

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