[ntp:questions] is USB inherently evil, or only if something else is on the bus?

[Steve Kostecke]

On 2012-08-08, Chuck Swiger <cswiger at mac.com> wrote:

> Folks probably never should use the LOCAL clock with a recent ntpd.

The Undisciplined Local Clock (aka "LOCAL") should never be used unless
an ntpd must be able to serve time to others in the absence of real time
sources.

> By definition, if you're using it your offset is always zero: if you
> know it is off, updating it to the right time rather than fudging makes
> far more sense.  Use orphan mode instead:

Neither mode provides a "better" undisciplined clock. Both modes
merely allow an ntpd to claim to be synced when, in reality, it is
freewheeling.

The main advantage to using Orphan Mode is that it allows a group of
systems to autonomously select a leader.

-- 
Steve Kostecke <kostecke at ntp.org>
NTP Public Services Project - http://support.ntp.org/