Michael Deutschmann wrote:
I've noticed a conflict between the instructions on the NTP server Pool
project page and other NTP advice.
It is commonly advised here to configure ntpd either to slave to 1
server, or to track 4 or more. The reason being that, when not slaving
blindly to one server, NTP's algorithms require 3 good servers, and if you
know all three will remain good, you may as well blindly track one.
In contrast, the NTP Pool directions explicitly say to use only 3 pool
servers when using the pool alone, and only 2 if you have a local
timeserver at your ISP. Presumably this also means only 1 pool server if
you have 2 others, and no pool servers if you have three or more others.
The intersection of these two rules mean the only possible answer is to
use one pool server with no backup, or no pool servers at all.
This means that the [012].*.pool.ntp.org hostnames are of no legitimate
use.
At present, I have my border NTP server slaved to my ISP's timeserver.
But that computer went nuts as of last Friday (It's in an endless loop
cycle of about twenty minutes -- it keeps letting the offsets to it's
reference servers drift to -2.8s and then resetting itself.), so I'm
considering adding the pool as a fallback. But following all the rules,
this is impossible.
---- Michael Deutschmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Any low stratum (1 or 2) NTP server is a fragile resource. Look at
what happens to the public open access servers operated by the US
Government! The whole world wants to get time from them and they are
usually staggering under the load. While the NIST servers are correct,
by definition, the time they serve is pretty raggety-ass when it gets to
you. This is due to either the load on the servers themselves or
network congestion or both.
The pool servers, mostly not backed by the government or wealthy
companies or institutions of higher education, are even more fragile.
They generally have network connections of rather modest capacities. I
suspect that they frequently run, not on the latest and greatest
hardware, but on the hardware nobody else wanted!
A lot of people can't place their servers in the pool because:
a. They don't have a static IP address, or
b. Their contract with their ISP prohibits them from operating a server
So configure three pool servers and one public access stratum 2 server
and you comply with both sets of rules.
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