Tim Shoppa wrote: > any sane ntp client would either > ride these network glitches out or just switch to a reachable server, > right? > As has been discussed, the ntp software we all love (ntpd, previously known as xntpd) does not do this.
When a server is configured with a DNS name (like pool.ntp.org) it performs a DNS lookup exactly once at startup of the daemon, and uses the IP address to contact the server. When this server fails (immediately or later), it does not attempt to do the DNS lookup again, so it remains stuck with the same nonfunctional server. The risk of this happening can be decreased a bit by using two or three servers, but when they all fail there still is a problem. Simple-NTP clients often do the lookup for every request so they don't show this behaviour. Rob _______________________________________________ timekeepers mailing list [email protected] https://fortytwo.ch/mailman/cgi-bin/listinfo/timekeepers
