Once ntpd starts using an IP address, it continues to use it until the
process exits (unless you're using the new 'pool' command, but that
requires a very recent version of ntpd).
There are large numbers of servers and other machines that are using the
pool that are up for long periods of time. For example, pretty much
every Linux distribution defaults to pool servers. People who don't
know (nor care) about how NTP works are likely to just 'yum install ntp;
service ntpd start' and not think about it any further. I seriously
doubt that most people are manually picking some NTP servers to use.
On 6/14/2013 7:09 AM, Miguel Barbosa Gonçalves wrote:
Greetings!
I know that NTP resolves hostnames on startup and, after that, the NTP
packets are exchanged with only those IP addresses.
I also understand that the NTP Pool Project design is based on this
premise.
The question is: how effective is the monitoring platform in removing
the dead or bad (from the monitoring platform viewpoint of course) NTP
servers from running NTP clients on users' computers?
This was just a rhetorical question of course. The monitoring system
can't notify the NTP daemon in the end users' computers.
As an end user with a 24x7 powered computer I would have to check the
NTP daemon once in a while. I know the chances of all 4 of the poll
assigned NTP servers becoming bad are pretty remote. On the other
hand, for a 24x7 computer a discerning user would probably choose 4
properly administered and maintained NTP servers close to him. I would
at least.
So it seems to me that the NTP Pool Project would be best targeted at
computers not running 24x7 or, better, might be being used mostly by
computers in these conditions.
Why then isn't it possible to allow users willing to provide their
bandwidth to the project to use their dynamic IP based servers to
support the project?
Something like a quick, say 30 minutes, convergence to a 10 score and
the monitoring platform would do a DNS resolve when the server stops
responding perhaps because the user changed it's IP address.
Any arguments why this is not a good idea?
Cheers,
Miguel
PS: As a side note, I have a stratum 1 at home (a Trimble Acutime Gold
antenna) and use some other close by stratum 2 servers as backup. In
my company I have 2 Meinberg NTP servers and 3 more GPS based custom
made servers.
_______________________________________________
pool mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.ntp.org/listinfo/pool
_______________________________________________
pool mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.ntp.org/listinfo/pool
