The best way to synchronize client-side javascript clock with server date

Question

I have a task to show digital clock (with minutes precision) on HTML page in some fixed timezone (MSK or MSD - depending on current date). I'd like to avoid relying on client system clock, so some synchronization with server is required. HTTP server sends Date header in each response so we can send an AJAX GET or HEAD request to any URL of our site to get server date, calculate the difference with client date and use it when updating clock with setTimeout(). There are other issues remains: timezone switching for daylight settings, latency accounting for very slow connections.

Any idea to this task the simpliest way? I'd prefer to solve it without server-side programming.

Answer 1

You can calculate exact time with NTP (Network Time Protocol) in your codes,

i try to explain for you:

1. We have ClientTime on Sending Request (for example 4/3/2012 13:56:10.123)
2. You send ClientTime to Server
3. We have Round-trip time for request, i called it RequestTime (for example: It takes 5 seconds)
4. In Server, We calculate Difference time between Server and Client (for example: It ServerTime - ClientTime = ServerClientDifferenceTimeWithRequestTime), you should now this Difference including Round-trip request time in step 3 then you should remove round trip time from Difference
5. Server Send response that include ServerClientDifferenceTimeWithRequestTime and ServerTime
6. We have Round-trip time for response, i called it ResponseTime (for example: It takes 3 seconds)
7. In client, We calculate Difference time between Server and Client again (for example: It ServerTime - ClientTime = ServerClientDifferenceTimeWithResponseTime), again: you should now this Difference including Round-trip response time in step 6
8. We have Now time in Client
9. You should Calculate simple equations in client:

X(SyncedTime) = Now + (ServerClientDifferenceTimeWithRequestTime - RquestTime)

X(SyncedTime) = Now + (ServerClientDifferenceTimeWithResponseTime - ResponseTime)

Now - ClientTime = RquestTime + ResponseTime =>

Now - (ServerClientDiffRq - RquestTime) = Now - (ServerClientDiffRs - ResponseTime)

if you solve it you found this:

ResponseTime = (ServerClientDifferenceTimeWithRequestTime - Now + ClientTime + - ServerClientDifferenceTimeWithResponseTime )/2

and then you can found synced time or server time in client with this equation:

X(SyncedTime) = Now + (ServerClientDifferenceTimeWithResponseTime - ResponseTime)

I show simple code but when you want write it don`t forgot use UTC date & time functions...

Server Side (for example php, c#):

PHP:

header('Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8');
$clientTime = $_GET["ct"] * 1; //for php 5.2.1 or up: (float)$_GET["ct"];
$serverTimestamp = round(microtime(true)*1000); // (new DateTime())->getTimestamp();
$serverClientRequestDiffTime = $serverTimestamp - $clientTime;
echo "{\"diff\":$serverClientRequestDiffTime,\"serverTimestamp\":$serverTimestamp}";

C#:

long clientTime = long.Parse(Request.Form["ct"]);
long serverTimestamp = (DateTime.Now.Ticks-(new DateTime(1970,1,1) - DateTime.MinValue).Ticks) / 10000;
long serverClientRequestDiffTime = serverTimestamp - clientTime;
Response.Write("{\"diff\":"+serverClientRequestDiffTime+",\"serverTimestamp\":"+serverTimestamp+"}");

Client Side (Javascript with Jquery):

var clientTimestamp = (new Date()).valueOf();
$.getJSON('http://yourhost.com/getdatetimejson/?ct='+clientTimestamp, function( data ) {
    var nowTimeStamp = (new Date()).valueOf();
    var serverClientRequestDiffTime = data.diff;
    var serverTimestamp = data.serverTimestamp;
    var serverClientResponseDiffTime = nowTimeStamp - serverTimestamp;
    var responseTime = (serverClientRequestDiffTime - nowTimeStamp + clientTimestamp - serverClientResponseDiffTime )/2

    var syncedServerTime = new Date((new Date()).valueOf() + (serverClientResponseDiffTime - responseTime));
    alert(syncedServerTime);
});

Answer 2

These two Javascript functions should do the trick for you.

var offset = 0;
function calcOffset() {
    var xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
    xmlhttp.open("GET", "http://stackoverflow.com/", false);
    xmlhttp.send();

    var dateStr = xmlhttp.getResponseHeader('Date');
    var serverTimeMillisGMT = Date.parse(new Date(Date.parse(dateStr)).toUTCString());
    var localMillisUTC = Date.parse(new Date().toUTCString());

    offset = serverTimeMillisGMT -  localMillisUTC;
}

function getServerTime() {
    var date = new Date();

    date.setTime(date.getTime() + offset);

    return date;
}

EDIT: removed ".replace(/^(.)[\s\S]/,"$1")".

calcOffset() calculates the offset from server time and compensates for GMT/UTC.

getServerTime() to get the local time offset to match the servers, using the local timezone.

If calcOffset() takes along time to execute you might loose some seconds precision. Maybe the execution time could be taken into account....

If you are worried about the calculated offset becoming wrong when either local time or server time change to or from daylight savings time you could recalculate a litle after every clock-hour, the system will compensate for changes in dayligt savings time. It might be necessary to wait until both the local and server clock has passed the hour.

The example only works in IE because of "Msxml2.XMLHTTP" i think.....

Answer 3

I've found that the algorithm of @mehdi-yeganeh above didn't give me useful results but the idea is sound: to use the NTP algorithm (or at least a weak version of it) to synchronize the server and client clocks.

This is my final implementation, it uses the server response headers if available for extra accuracy (please correct me if I'm wrong, my own tests say this is quite accurate).

browser-side (javascript):

// the NTP algorithm
// t0 is the client's timestamp of the request packet transmission,
// t1 is the server's timestamp of the request packet reception,
// t2 is the server's timestamp of the response packet transmission and
// t3 is the client's timestamp of the response packet reception.
function ntp(t0, t1, t2, t3) {
    return {
        roundtripdelay: (t3 - t0) - (t2 - t1),
        offset: ((t1 - t0) + (t2 - t3)) / 2
    };
}

// calculate the difference in seconds between the client and server clocks, use
// the NTP algorithm, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Time_Protocol#Clock_synchronization_algorithm
var t0 = (new Date()).valueOf();

$.ajax({
    url: '/ntp',
    success: function(servertime, text, resp) {
        // NOTE: t2 isn't entirely accurate because we're assuming that the server spends 0ms on processing.
        // (t1 isn't accurate either, as there's bound to have been some processing before that, but we can't avoid that)
        var t1 = servertime,
            t2 = servertime,
            t3 = (new Date()).valueOf();

        // we can get a more accurate version of t2 if the server's response
        // contains a Date header, which it generally will.
        // EDIT: as @Ariel rightly notes, the HTTP Date header only has 
        // second resolution, thus using it will actually make the calculated
        // result worse. For higher accuracy, one would thus have to 
        // return an extra header with a higher-resolution time. This 
        // could be done with nginx for example:
        // http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_core_module.html
        // var date = resp.getResponseHeader("Date");
        // if (date) {
        //     t2 = (new Date(date)).valueOf();
        // }

        var c = ntp(t0, t1, t2, t3);

        // log the calculated value rtt and time driff so we can manually verify if they make sense
        console.log("NTP delay:", c.roundtripdelay, "NTP offset:", c.offset, "corrected: ", (new Date(t3 + c.offset)));
    }
});

server-side (php, but could be anything):

Your server at route 'GET /ntp' should return something like:

echo (string) round(microtime(true) * 1000);

If you have PHP >5.4, then you can save a call to microtime() and make it a bit more accurate with:

echo (string) round($_SERVER['REQUEST_TIME_FLOAT'] * 1000);

NOTE

This way might be seen as kind of ghetto, there are some other Stack Overflow answers that could guide you towards a better solution:

• How to sync a javascript countdown with server time
• Sync JS time between multiple devices
• Notably, this solution has been offered a few times: https://github.com/NodeGuy/ServerDate. It seems like this is a tad bit more work to setup but should provide better accuracy.