On 2016-11-23 03:28, Martin Burnicki wrote:
Brian Inglis wrote:
On 2016-11-22 09:06, Martin Burnicki wrote:
An updated GUI installer for ntp-4.2.8p9 for Windows is now
available at
https://www.meinbergglobal.com/english/sw/ntp.htm#ntp_stable
Does this release also include loopback-ppsapi-provider.dll?
Yes. All we do here at Meinberg to build the installer for Windows is to
- grab the current openSSL sources, and build the DLLs
- grab the current NTP source tarball and build the binaries based
on the openSSL DLLs
- Add a cryptographic signature to the compiled binaries
- Put the signed binaries into a setup program
- Add a cryptographic signature to the setup program
The loopback-ppsapi-provider.dll is automatically built when the NTP
source is built. Since building is always in a fresh directory the
DLL wouldn't be there if it hadn't been built.
Thanks Martin.
The dates on the installed DLL match your initial 4.2.8 release
date, so it is not clear whether it has just not changed since
then, or not been provided since then:
Access: 2015-01-31 14:26:58.746040500 -0700
Modify: 2014-12-22 06:21:16.000000000 -0700
Change: 2015-01-31 14:26:58.761640500 -0700
Birth: 2014-12-22 06:21:16.000000000 -0700
whereas libeay32.dll shows:
Access: 2015-01-31 14:26:58.777240500 -0700
Modify: 2016-04-28 03:20:48.000000000 -0600
Change: 2016-07-30 00:43:58.363201800 -0600
Birth: 2016-04-28 03:20:48.000000000 -0600
Not sure where you see these time stamps (I'm usually working under
Linux). However, if you right-click on the DLL file, select
"Properties", and then "Digital Signatures" the current version of
the DLL should have 2 signatures (SHA1 and SHA256) dated 2016-11-22.
The timestamps are displayed by Cygwin stat(1), and Birth is Windows
Explorer Creation Date. The signature timestamps agree with the birth
(creation) times.
Eventually the DLL couldn't be updated by the installer since it was
in use when you installed the update.
Guess we should shut down NTP before running the installer, rather than
letting the installer do the shutdown, on a file-only replacement.
I have to admit that personally I've never used PPS under Windows,
so I'm not familiar with this DLL and the modified serial.sys driver
which supports PPS.
Driver serial.sys is (was?) compatible with ISA drivers, but not PCI
drivers, for which loopback-ppsapi-provider.dll provides the PPS API.
IIRC this has been implemented by Dave Hart some years ago, and we
(Meinberg) just provide a signed version of the DLL and the kernel
driver simplify usage on current Windows versions which require such
signatures.
This DLL seems to be the only way to get PPS working
properly with recent (PCI) serial cards and drivers on
recent Windows releases.
Presumably for security reasons, the full path(s) must be
specified in the PPSAPI_DLLS *SYSTEM* environment variable,
on recent Windows releases.
This should be documented somewhere, but I have no idea it there's any
documentation for this stuff at all, except on David Taylor's web pages
and in some email/newsgroup posts.
Use of serial.sys is well documented, but loopback-ppsapi-provider.dll, and
alternative NMEA PPSAPI_HACK are not, and Perly says he may find time to
document these, after recent fixes.
PPSAPI_DLLS http://bugs.ntp.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3066#c4
PPSAPI_HACK http://bugs.ntp.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3066#c11
Thanks to Meinberg, Martin, et. al. for providing these convenient installers
for so many years.
Thanks also to Harlan Stenn, Juergen Perlinger, Brian Utterback, et. al. for
fixing so many bugs for so long.
--
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
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