[ntp:questions] Re: ntp? return value for use in scripts

David Wuertele dave-gnus at bfnet.com
Mon Jan 26 23:43:56 UTC 2004


Hal> Unless your system is different, it's actually using the good
Hal> crystal already.

Nope, I know for certain that it is using the CPU program counter.

Hal> How stable is the temperature you will be running in?

People's living rooms, possibly in a hot equipment rack.

Hal> ntp normally figures out a first-order correction factor for your
Hal> clock.  That's the number (ppm) stored in /etc/ntp.drift (or
Hal> wherever).  If you get disconnected from the network, the clock
Hal> will stay reasonably accurate rather than drift at the rate of
Hal> the raw difference between real and expected crystal frequencies.

Sometimes my box won't ever be connected to the net.

Hal> So if you write the "good" time back to the TOY chip
Hal> occasionally, you will be close(er) the next time you crash and
Hal> reboot.

Right, but I want to avoid doing that if I never connected to the net.
I suppose what I could do is test whether I can ping an NTP server,
but that isn't a sufficient condition for NTP syncitude, so I really
want to ask ntpd.



More information about the questions mailing list