[ntp:questions] Thoughts on KOD

Magnus Danielson magnus at rubidium.dyndns.org
Tue Jul 8 10:40:55 UTC 2014



On 07/08/2014 12:11 PM, Jason Rabel wrote:
>> There are two obvious ways to go for an embedded client.
>>
>> One way would be to use the sntp code as the base.
>>
>> The other would be to either use the current NTP codebase and use the
>> configure options to disable all the refclocks and anything else you
>> didn't want, or wait until we're done with the post-4.2.8 rewrite.  For
>> post-4.2.8, we're looking at having a "client core" with any refclock
>> code being handled a separate process.
>
> I do not know if this is the case with NTP, but quite often it takes
> considerable hacking of sources to get code to compile on non-x86
> embedded hardware (i.e. ARM & MIPS)... It would probably help boost usage
> if someone was assuring NTP sources compile on those platforms without
> the need for modification.

You need to gift wrap it considerable, such that the proliferation of 
bad-hacked NTPish code gets replaced. Putting a price-tag on it mean 
that it will prohibit the shift of code, which in itself is a cost.
Hobby-hackers already do many first breaks, so why not make sure that 
their contributions make it into the code such that support for a large 
range of embedded platforms exists either directly in NTPD or easily 
accessible port.

Another thought is to have people review the NTP/SNTPish code that is 
out there to see how their complience are, what KOD they would react to 
and how much effort it would to fix the basics.

Then again, the basic problem is that people doesn't upgrade their FW as 
they should.

Listing of implementations, their target environments and versions to 
use and versions to avoid should maybe be of assistance.

Cheers,
Magnus


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