[ntp:questions] [help]how to configure ntp in a private network

Jason Rabel jason at extremeoverclocking.com
Wed Jul 16 14:12:03 UTC 2014


John,

I think this page explain orphan mode and configuration the best:

http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/html/orphan.html

I kind of did similar to that setup... My S1 servers don't all run
standard NTPD so I couldn't do anything about that. What I did was make a
S2 group that used the "tos orphan 5" and then used the "peer" directive
to peer with each other. After that all the clients use the S2 group as
their primary NTP servers.

I think the point you are missing is you need to have some initial time
source to discipline your main NTP servers. Otherwise their drift rates
and directions are all different (as you have found out) and none of the
numbers will match up so NTP just takes a dump on everything.

For simplicity you could just have your 4 NTP server (ABCD) use random
NTP Pool servers. That will get them going in the right direction and be
happy. If you want to keep your network truly isolated, then a separate
GPS (or CDMA) based NTP server that ABCD point too will also work.

As for what the clients should (or shouldn't) run, usually in the VM
documentation for whatever you are running will detail the best
practices.



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