[ntp:questions] Re: handling of falsetickers with dumb NTP clients

Danny Mayer mayer at gis.net
Thu Sep 11 22:30:07 UTC 2003


"David L. Mills" <mills at udel.edu> wrote in message news:<3F5E8479.727FB1E2 at udel.edu>...
> Danny,
> 
> I strongly agree and recall a meeting I was at with the root DNS server
> operators in late 1999 where they were concerned that NTP during the
> millennium roll might do extremely wicked things. They take time really
> seriously for obvious reasons. I told them not to worry because NTP
> doesn't know anything except the number of vague seconds since 1900.
> Well, we're still heeeeere.
> 
> Well, they beat me up about the NTP roll in 2036. I told them not to
> worry even then. See the backgrounder article about the NTP timescale
> and era numbering on the NTP project page.
> 
> Dave
> 

Well NTP and DNS, or at least BIND, have a somewhat Tweedledum-Tweedledee
realtionship. They both are dependent on each other. NTP needs DNS to
lookup and get IP addresses, and BIND needs an accurate source of time
especially for security-related connections.

Danny



More information about the questions mailing list