[ntp:questions] Basic Question - how to verify whether a new NTP server is ready to serve time?

David Woolley david at djwhome.demon.co.uk
Sat Feb 3 10:33:20 UTC 2007


In article <1170482365.594728.320910 at v45g2000cwv.googlegroups.com>,
"April" <xiaoxia2005a at yahoo.com> wrote:

> xntpd - like to know how to check on the server and to verify from

Make sure that you aren't really running ntpd as some vendors have
a weird idea that misnaming ntpd confuses people less; it certainly
confuses people giving support more.  If this is the case, I suggest
you consult the vendor for support, as they will know how they have
renamed things (or install the standard version under the standard name).
(This is one reason why you should alway provide platform information
and preferrably give the exact version of the program.)

If you really are running xntpd, please note that this is obsolete and
people here haven't experienced it for many years, so  you would be 
better to upgrade first.

> another server (kind acts like a NTP client) .. thanks in advance.

The best method is to read the documentation.  However, as a hint of
where to look in the documenation, if the configuration hasn't been set
up to selectively block this, running ntpq (xntpq?), in particular host,
peers and rv commands, will provide a lot of diagnostic information.

ntpdate may be used to simulate a client, but, in diagnostic mode, won't
detect some firewalling problems.

PS.  If you are concerned about knowing when a server is ready, you almost
certainly want to use the iburst feature to speed up startup.  This is
only available in recent versions of ntpd.  It is not available in xntpd
and probably not available in versions of ntpd that have been renamed as
xntpd.




More information about the questions mailing list