[ntp:questions] Bad NTP servers jeopardizing the pool.ntp.org initiative

Jan Ceuleers janspam.ceuleers at skynet.be
Wed Mar 28 19:46:55 UTC 2007


Danny Mayer wrote:
> Wolfgang S. Rupprecht wrote:
>> Perhaps I should rephrase that.
>>
>>         "NTP could use a simple registration protocol if the pools
>>         folks wanted to open up the pools to dynamic hosts."
>>
> 
> Please don't do this. (...)

While I pointed out how it _could_ be done, I agree that it's not a good 
idea to actually implement this. Implementing this would only make sense 
if there are many NTP servers out there that would be eligible for pool 
membership if it weren't for the fact that they're on dynamic IP 
addresses. Additionally, those servers would have remain on the same IP 
address for a "long time", such that IP address changes are "infrequent" 
(whatever that means).

There definitely are such NTP servers (e.g. servers on SHDSL lines that 
don't have a fixed IP address but retain their IP address for several 
weeks if not months). I don't know whether it's worth the effort for the 
pool maintainers to tap into this resource, because I don't know how 
large it is.

In my view however, no change to ntpd should be necessary, particularly 
given the re-resolving logic that appears to be in the works.

Cheers, Jan




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