eBay Time Server

The eBay time protocol, talks to eBay's time server. Since it uses the HTTP port (port 80) it allows you to communicate through most firewalls.

Major Uses:

When other protocols are blocked by firewalls
Firewalls often restrict all communication over the ports normally used by public timeservers. If it impractical to reconfigure the firewall, then use the eBay protocol that communicates over tcp port 80, the same port used for web communication. eBay maintains this public timeserver at standard time. It can be selected within ClockWatch from the timeserver directory list. (see Options->Timeserver, Directory)

Format:

eBay time setting format
 Communicates via TCP/IP on port 80. After a setting is made, the time string used in the setting is displayed in the timeserver log window. ClockWatch translates this string. All times from eBay are in UTC. This time string is made up of a series of fields arranged end to end.

eBay date-time values are in the ISO 8601 date and time format.
Format headings, with a sample time string below it:

  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.SSSZ  
  2009-03-26T22:01:22.347Z

YYYY-MM-DD HHMMSS.SSS - The next 6 values give the coordinated universal date and time as year, month, day, hour, minute and second with milliseconds. Hours are in 24-hour format (e.g., 10:00 pm is 22:00).
 

Z - date-time values are recorded in Universal Coordinated Time (UTC formerly called Greenwich Mean Time) or Zulu (because the time portion of the time stamp ends with a Z).