<?xml version='1.0'?>

<reference anchor='RFC0868'>

<front>
<title>Time Protocol</title>
<author initials='J.' surname='Postel' fullname='J. Postel'>
<organization>University of Southern California (USC)/Information Sciences Institute</organization>
<address>
<postal>
<street>4676 Admiralty Way</street>
<city>Marina del Rey</city>
<region>CA</region>
<code>90291</code>
<country>US</country></postal>
<phone>+1 213 822 1511</phone></address></author>
<author initials='K.' surname='Harrenstien' fullname='K. Harrenstien'>
<organization>SRI International</organization></author>
<date month='May' day='1' year='1983' />
<abstract>
<t>This RFC specifies a standard for the ARPA Internet community.  Hosts on the ARPA Internet that choose to implement a Time Protocol are expected to adopt and implement this standard.</t>
<t>This protocol provides a site-independent, machine readable date and time.  The Time service sends back to the originating source the time in seconds since midnight on January first 1900.</t>
<t>One motivation arises from the fact that not all systems have a date/time clock, and all are subject to occasional human or machine error.  The use of time-servers makes it possible to quickly confirm or 
correct a system's idea of the time, by making a brief poll of several independent sites on the network.</t>
<t>This protocol may be used either above the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or above the User Datagram Protocol (UDP).</t></abstract></front>

<seriesInfo name='STD' value='26' />
<seriesInfo name='RFC' value='868' />
</reference>
