C# SNTP Client

Though not obvious, time synchronization is sometimes important. The best example is the Kerberos authentication protocol, which requires the resources to be synchronized within minutes or even seconds, but there are other situations as well. The Network Time Protocol (NTP) and its simplified form (SNTP) are widely used to synchronize network resources, due to their simplicity and effectiveness. There are many programs available that synchronize your PC's clock with that of a time server. Dimension 4 is my favorite.

In case you need time synchronization embedded into your software, here is the C# alternative. It's simple, fast and integrates seamlessly with the .NET platform. There is a Java implementation of a NTP client by Michel Van den Bergh, but I don't have the URL anymore. If Michel (or anyone else that knows it) reads this and emails me, then I'll update the article.

There are several time severs on the Internet and the list below contains those operated by NIST. If you need more, you can probably find a few more using any standard Internet search engine.

The server time.nist.gov yields the following results:

The NTPClient class is simply to use. Follow the example below:

NTPClient client;
try 
{
 client = new NTPClient("time.nist.gov");
 client.Connect();
}
catch(Exception e)
{
 Console.WriteLine("ERROR: {0}", e.Message);
 return;
}
Console.Write(client.ToString());

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