The TIME service is an Internet Protocol defined in Request for Comments 868. Its purpose is to provide a site-independent, machine readable date and time.

A host may connect to a server that supports the TIME protocol, on either Transmission Control Protocol or User Datagram Protocol port 37. The server then sends the time as 32-bit binary number. The host receives the time, and in case of a TCP connection, closes the connection.

In modern practise, the TIME protocol is completely superseded by the Network time protocol (NTP).

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