[ntp:questions] Simple ntp setup, but I must be doing something wrong

[Jeff Boyce]

Greetings -

Over the last several weeks I have been trying to get the NTP service 
running properly on my company linux file server, but am not having much 
success.  My objective is to synchronize my linux server with a secondary 
time server or one of the ntp pools, then synchronize a handfull of desktop 
windows systems with the file server.  My reason for doing this is that the 
timekeeping on the PCs are all over the place, and the server seems to lose 
anywhere from 1-2 minutes per month.  I don't need anything super accurate, 
just something that is reasonably close and stays consistent.  I have read 
everything I can find on setting this up (the link between the PC's and the 
file server is working properly) and have been following discussions on this 
list for about a month, but haven't been able to solve it yet.  Below is my 
config file, the output of ntpq -p and ntpq -pn, and the log messages from 
the last restart of ntp that matches the configuration file shown below.

[root at Bison root]# ntpq -p
     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset 
jitter
==============================================================================
 rainforest.neor 0.0.0.0         16 u    - 1024    0    0.000    0.000 
4000.00
*LOCAL(0)        LOCAL(0)        10 l   21   64  377    0.000    0.000 
0.008

[root at Bison root]# ntpq -pn
     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset 
jitter
==============================================================================
 216.176.180.82  0.0.0.0         16 u    - 1024    0    0.000    0.000 
4000.00
*127.127.1.0     127.127.1.0     10 l   53   64  377    0.000    0.000 
0.008

[root at Bison root]# grep --invert-match ^\# /etc/ntp.conf
restrict 127.0.0.1
server 216.176.180.82
server  127.127.1.0     # local clock
fudge   127.127.1.0 stratum 10
driftfile /var/lib/ntp/drift
broadcastdelay  0.008

/var/log/messages
Aug 24 08:26:31 bison ntpd[26341]: ntpd exiting on signal 15
Aug 24 08:26:31 bison ntpd: ntpd shutdown succeeded
Aug 24 08:26:56 bison ntpdate[27483]: no server suitable for synchronization 
found
Aug 24 08:26:56 bison ntpd:  failed
Aug 24 08:26:56 bison ntpd[27487]: ntpd 4.1.2 at 1.892 Tue Feb 24 06:32:25 EST 
2004 (1)
Aug 24 08:26:56 bison ntpd: ntpd startup succeeded
Aug 24 08:26:56 bison ntpd[27487]: precision = 9 usec
Aug 24 08:26:56 bison ntpd[27487]: kernel time discipline status 0040
Aug 24 08:26:56 bison ntpd[27487]: frequency initialized 0.000 from 
/var/lib/ntp/drift
Aug 24 08:28:28 bison sshd(pam_unix)[27593]: session opened for user root by 
(uid=0)
Aug 24 08:28:51 bison sshd(pam_unix)[27593]: session closed for user root
Aug 24 08:30:10 bison ntpd[27487]: kernel time discipline status change 41
Aug 24 08:31:15 bison ntpd[27487]: kernel time discipline status change 1

I previously thought the problem was firewall related.  I have since turned 
off the firewall of my linux box, and the firewall application on my DSL 
router/gateway is set to allow both incoming and outgoing ntp communication. 
My linux box is a Dell PE 2600 with RHEL 3 fully up to date (U8).  Therefore 
my current version of NTP is  4.1.2-4.EL3.1.  The secondary time server 
listed in my config is from the stratum two time server list on ntp.org. 
This time server is located in the Seattle area (near my location) and is 
listed as having an open access policy.  It is interesting to note that in 
my ntpq query this time server provides a listing of stratum 16, which I 
assume is why ntp is falling back to the local time clock.  When I have 
substituted the ntp pool servers into my config file, then my ntp query 
shows that nothing is connecting (i.e., no astrix listed before any of the 
server names).  Have I made a simple mistake somewhere in my config file?  I 
thought I had it stripped down to the minimum.  Can someone give me another 
diagnostic avenue to go down, I am running out of ideas here?  Thanks.

Jeff Boyce
www.meridianenv.com