JSI Tip 2040. How does NET TIME determine the Time Source Server?

In Windows NT and Windows 2000, a Time Source Server advertises through the browser. You can see how this works by using BROWSTAT from the Resource Kit.

NOTE: The W2K Resource Kit didn't have BROWSTAT, but it should be available in the next release. I used the NT 4.0 version on W2K for these examples.

As the Time Source Server advertises on each transport, we first must issue a:

BROWSTAT STATUS \[-v\] \[Domain\]

to get a list of transports. Here is a sample from my domain:

C:\>browstat status -v JSIINC

Status for domain JSIINC on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_\{5CC729D2-3615-483D-BA48-D4142D277CA6\}
    Browsing is active on domain.
    Master browser name is: JSI001
        Master browser is running build 2195
    There are 3 servers in domain JSIINC on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_\{5CC729D2-3615-483D-BA48-D4142D277CA6\}
        Number of NT Advanced Servers:                  1
        Number of OS/2 Domain controllers:              0
        Number of Windows For Workgroups machines:      0
        Number of Os/2 machines:                        0
        Number of NT machines:                          3

        Number of active WfW browsers:                  0
        Number of browsers:                             3
        Number of backup browsers:                      0
        Number of master browsers:                      1
    There are 1 domains in domain JSIINC on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_\{5CC729D2-3615-483D-BA48-D4142D277CA6\}

NOTE: Each transport will have a similar listing.

For each transport:

BROWSTAT VIEW <transport>

Example:

C:\>browstat view \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_\{5CC729D2-3615-483D-BA48-D4142D277CA6\}

Remoting NetServerEnum to \\JSI001 on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_\{5CC729D2-3615-483D-BA48-D4142D277CA6\}
 with flags ffffffff
3 entries returned.  3 total. 20 milliseconds

\\JSI001            NT   05.00 (W,S,PDC,TS,PQ,NT,MBR)
\\JSI005            NT   05.00 (W,S,SQL,NT,PBR)
\\JSI009            NT   04.00 (W,S,PQ,NT,PBR)

The Time Source Server is advertising itself with the TS service indicator.

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