[ntp:questions] Re: NTP Leap Second on Windows XP

Maarten Wiltink maarten at kittensandcats.net
Tue Jan 3 15:49:23 UTC 2006


"Danny Mayer" <mayer at ntp.isc.org> wrote in message
news:43BA87EB.5060001 at ntp.isc.org...
> Maarten Wiltink wrote:
[...]
> As I commented to Tom some time ago, trying to obsolete ntpdate is a bit
> like obsoleting nslookup, it may never actually happen. So I'm not going
> to try convincing you.

That's probably the sanest (and best for your sanity) position to resign
yourself to. For what it's worth, as a fellow developer - in a different
field - I do appreciate your striving for progress in the face of the
conservative hordes. As a production user, I'm not about to break a
working setup.

Just curious. With "disable ntp" in the configuration, would ntpd ever
take that single allowed step? I suspect not, but I don't _know_... and
I was really expecting you to bring that up.


[...]
> I was bothered about the tinkering with the drift value as I was not
> convinced that you were doing anything helpful. If the servers you were
> using were badly off, for some meaning of off, then perhaps the best
> solution would be to choose new servers, at least for the time being.

Ah, but I did. (-:

I must admit that I did not consider choosing new servers, even
temporarily. This was a unique and transient event. I fully expected
stable NTP service to be restored, by those same four servers, the same
day. These aren't just any four random servers the world over, by the
way. They are _the_ four NTP servers maintained and advertised for
customer use by my ISP. I do find it somewhat disappointing that they
didn't do better.


>> [Given] that ntpd was turning garbage in ... into garbage out ...,
>> could you suggest a better plan ...?

> [...] My suggested solution is to point to different servers and see
> if things get better.

If I had expected the "outage" to last longer, I might have. The problem
then becomes choosing servers. I could have selected one of the stratum 1
servers my ISP listens to and hope it stays stable. Or the whole list of
them, and hope I fare better than my ISP. Or look for stratum 1s among
nearby pool servers (higher stratum servers are likely to have the same
problems I'm trying to run away from). None of these options sound
especially attractive. I'm trying to be a good citizen, too. Anything I
decide on as the best option is likely to occur to another thousand
people as being their best option as well.

I also feel that in essence, I did pick a new server. Me. I'm not as
responsive or as accurate as ntpd, but under the circumstances I was
*much* better at server selection, which was the critical factor.

Groetjes,
Maarten Wiltink





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