> In the ARC review of the GNOME system tools project this week, one > of the issues raised was the hardcoded list of public NTP servers > used in the Date & Time panel. > > I suggested both that a better default was pool.ntp.org and that > the good community citizen thing to do would be to have Sun provide > servers to the ntp pool as well as using them. Digging a bit > further into the stats on http://www.pool.ntp.org I noticed that > there seems to be low coverage in some places where there are > active OpenSolaris User Groups. For instance, these areas have > one or more OSUG's listed on the user group community on opensolaris.org, > but few ntp pool servers listed: > > China cn.pool.ntp.org (2) > India in.pool.ntp.org (0) > Australia au.pool.ntp.org (20) > Argentina ar.pool.ntp.org (3) > Brazil br.pool.ntp.org (5) > Venezuela - none > Turkey tr.pool.ntp.org (1) > > Would it make sense to have the various worldwide user groups > work with their local Sun offices to set up local NTP pool servers > so that their local user community can get better time service? > > [Disclaimer: this is just an idea I had - I cannot commit the local > Sun offices to doing this, but for the cost of a bottom-end Ultra 20 > and a little bandwidth, it would seem to be a fairly low cost > community outreach/benefit they could be providing. Or perhaps a > low-end rack mount server with one zone running the NTP pool service > and another running a web site or other services for the User Group.] >
I have been running and tracking my ntp server for quite some time and I can tell you that one may achieve decent accuracy as a strata 3 server with an old Netra T1 AC105 unit. Its 1U in the rack, low power, dirt cheap, runs Solaris 10 Update 2 and no where near the cost of a Ultra 20. http://www.blastwave.org/ntpstats/index.html Perhaps it would be a good idea to do more than just provide yet another strata 3 server set but perhaps go the next step and setup radio tuned NTP servers or HP/Agilent model 5071A cesium based NTP servers. The HP 5071A is a somewhat expensive way to go and it would require that the operator be conversant with the calibration procedures and have access to a reference service. A decent GPS based clock will ensure about 1 ms of accuracy over time so long as the military does not make any more changes to the GPS services. In any case, I think that creating a few NTP pool servers is a good idea but more strata 3 servers hardly help. At least a strata 2 server would be needed I think. -- Dennis Clarke _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org