[ntp:questions] drift value very large and very unstable

Unruh unruh-spam at physics.ubc.ca
Wed Mar 12 16:29:35 UTC 2008


"Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88 at comcast.net> writes:

>David Woolley wrote:
>> Unruh wrote:
>> 
>>> that is why there is a proposed file system standard. Log files in 
>>> /var/log/ntp say.
>>> Drift file in /etc/ntp.drift
>>> config file in /etc/ntp.conf
>>>
>> 
>> I think they were referring to the Linux filesystem standard, and one of 
>> the things that does is to move things out of /etc.  In particular, 
>> /etc/ntp.drift would never be allowed, because the file is updated 
>> dynamically.
>> 
>> Incidentally, a specimen configuration needn't include real server names.

>It almost certainly SHOULD NOT contain real server names.  At least a 
>specimen provided by the NTP group should not.  A specimen provided by 
>an O/S vendor could properly include servers owned and operated by that 
>vendor as RedHat does.

Well, no, that was why the pool was invented. It could well have 
a pool server included.


>If I were to write a sample ntp.conf it might look like this:

For whose purposes is this?
Not for any generic user except maybe at your organization.


>#
># NTP monitoring parameters
>#
>logfile /var/ntp/ntp.log
>statsdir /var/ntp/ntpstats/
>driftfile /var/ntp/ntp.drift
>statistics peerstats clockstats
>filegen peerstats file peerstats type day enable
>filegen clockstats file clockstats type day enable

I would comment those all out and state that if you want debugging info,
uncomment them Most people will never ever look at the statistics files. 

># Hardware Reference Clock
>server 127.127.3.0 prefer       # PST/Traconex 1020/1030 (Type 3 Unit 0)

And that out since noone has a PST/Traconex 1020/1030 refclock.

># Network servers
>server 192.168.1.20 iburst      # Our local GPS server

And you would expect anyone else to have that as well?

>server 10.1.1.103		# RFC-1918 address to fill out example
>server 10.2.2.104		# Another RFC-1918 address. . . .
>#
># Authentication parameters
>#
>keys /etc/inet/ntp.keys
>trustedkey      2 3 4
>controlkey 3            # To access the ntpq utility
>requestkey 2            # To access the ntpdc utility

>I might include more comments pointing out what the user needs to 
>customize and a link to the ntp documentation.

And where are the pool servers which the user might actually want to use?

Things like the pool servers is something the user is highly unlikely to
know about, and a sample config file is a great place to tell them.





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