Sync system time to domain controller using .NET code

Question

I have time based tests to run that require changing the system time multiple times during the test. I want to be able to resync the time to the domain controller time at the end of the test. I there any way to do that using .NET code (C#). I am changing the time using the p-invoke function found in:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/204936/set-time-programmatically-using-c

Thanks

Answer 1

You can do this using the command line tool w32tm:

w32tm /resync

This is neither C# nor .NET, but it hopefully fits your requirements.

Answer 2

One easy way would be to launch a process and run the NET TIME command (copied from http://blogs.msdn.com/sanket/archive/2006/11/02/synchronizing-machine-time-with-domain-controller.aspx)

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Process netTime = new Process();

        netTime.StartInfo.FileName   = "NET.exe";
        netTime.StartInfo.Arguments = "TIME /domain:mydomainname /SET /Y";
        netTime.Start();
    }
}

Answer 3

The easiest way would be to use System.Diagnostics.Process to run a net time command with the appropriate parameters to sync back to your DC.

Run this from a command prompt to see what I'm talking about:

net time /?

Answer 4

As an addition to the other answers:

You should seriously consider making the notion of "current time" somehow injectable into your system. Directly reading from the system clock is very problematic (even when running the app), precisely because it is global state.