I think I'm done wandering around the discussion about the subzones and similar stuff. It doesn't look like it is leading anywhere useful. I think it has also become very unfocused.
Try try and bring things back into focus, here is a summary of my thoughts on the NTP pool project: TOP PRIORITY: * increase the number of servers in the pool VERY IMPORTANT: * The 0, 1, and 2 zones *MUST* be orthogonal. That is, at any give time, a pool server MUST NOT be in more than one of them. * We should create a 3 and 4 zones so that false tickers can be detected. Remember: pool servers are often not that reliable over long periods of time, so it is quite possible to pick up a couple of servers that turn out to be false tickers after a couple of months. * All zones must have a minimum of 3-5 servers in them so that some server doesn't end up being overloaded. Filling these zones from the global pool is *FAR* better than leaving them nearly empty. GOALS: The goal of the NTP pool project should be to have a simple, easy to use way, of getting reasonably good time. I think it is very easy for us to provide time in the 50-200ms accuracy range, and therefore we should. I think it would be very hard for us to provide time in the 5-20ms accuracy range, therefore we shouldn't. I think aiming for just "sub second" accuracy won't save us any work because any NTP server that can't provide 50-200ms accuracy almost certainly isn't reliable enough to provide 500-1000ms accuracy. There is a "sweet spot" at around 50-200ms. I think geographic distances are a poor approximation of network distances, but good enough to be usable. If people think that this is not the case, then we should immediately "retire" the continent and country zones by making them a CNAME to the global zone. I think that timezones make a useful geographical division of the world because it is almost always know to configure scripts and because it often reflects political boundaries when those boundaries are useful. -wayne _______________________________________________ timekeepers mailing list [email protected] https://fortytwo.ch/mailman/cgi-bin/listinfo/timekeepers
