[ntp:questions] NTP 4.2.8p9 installer for Windows available

Brian Inglis Brian.Inglis at Shaw.ca
Wed Nov 23 18:32:58 UTC 2016


On 2016-11-23 03:28, Martin Burnicki wrote:
> Brian Inglis wrote:
>> On 2016-11-22 09:06, Martin Burnicki wrote:
>>> An updated GUI installer for ntp-4.2.8p9 for Windows is now
>>> available at
>>> https://www.meinbergglobal.com/english/sw/ntp.htm#ntp_stable
>> Does this release also include loopback-ppsapi-provider.dll?
> Yes. All we do here at Meinberg to build the installer for Windows is to
> - grab the current openSSL sources, and build the DLLs
> - grab the current NTP source tarball and build the binaries based
> on the openSSL DLLs
> - Add a cryptographic signature to the compiled binaries
> - Put the signed binaries into a setup program
> - Add a cryptographic signature to the setup program
> The loopback-ppsapi-provider.dll is automatically built when the NTP
> source is built. Since building is always in a fresh directory the
> DLL wouldn't be there if it hadn't been built.

Thanks Martin.

>> The dates on the installed DLL match your initial 4.2.8 release
>> date, so it is not clear whether it has just not changed since
>> then, or not been provided since then:
>> Access: 2015-01-31 14:26:58.746040500 -0700
>> Modify: 2014-12-22 06:21:16.000000000 -0700
>> Change: 2015-01-31 14:26:58.761640500 -0700
>>  Birth: 2014-12-22 06:21:16.000000000 -0700
>> whereas libeay32.dll shows:
>> Access: 2015-01-31 14:26:58.777240500 -0700
>> Modify: 2016-04-28 03:20:48.000000000 -0600
>> Change: 2016-07-30 00:43:58.363201800 -0600
>>  Birth: 2016-04-28 03:20:48.000000000 -0600
> Not sure where you see these time stamps (I'm usually working under
> Linux). However, if you right-click on the DLL file, select
> "Properties", and then "Digital Signatures" the current version of
> the DLL should have 2 signatures (SHA1 and SHA256) dated 2016-11-22.

The timestamps are displayed by Cygwin stat(1), and Birth is Windows
Explorer Creation Date. The signature timestamps agree with the birth
(creation) times.

> Eventually the DLL couldn't be updated by the installer since it was
> in use when you installed the update.

Guess we should shut down NTP before running the installer, rather than
letting the installer do the shutdown, on a file-only replacement.

> I have to admit that personally I've never used PPS under Windows,
> so I'm not familiar with this DLL and the modified serial.sys driver
> which supports PPS.

Driver serial.sys is (was?) compatible with ISA drivers, but not PCI
drivers, for which loopback-ppsapi-provider.dll provides the PPS API.

> IIRC this has been implemented by Dave Hart some years ago, and we
> (Meinberg) just provide a signed version of the DLL and the kernel
> driver simplify usage on current Windows versions which require such
> signatures.
>
>> This DLL seems to be the only way to get PPS working
>> properly with recent (PCI) serial cards and drivers on
>> recent Windows releases.
>>
>> Presumably for security reasons, the full path(s) must be
>> specified in the PPSAPI_DLLS *SYSTEM* environment variable,
>> on recent Windows releases.
>
> This should be documented somewhere, but I have no idea it there's any
> documentation for this stuff at all, except on David Taylor's web pages
> and in some email/newsgroup posts.

Use of serial.sys is well documented, but loopback-ppsapi-provider.dll, and
alternative NMEA PPSAPI_HACK are not, and Perly says he may find time to
document these, after recent fixes.

PPSAPI_DLLS http://bugs.ntp.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3066#c4
PPSAPI_HACK http://bugs.ntp.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3066#c11

Thanks to Meinberg, Martin, et. al. for providing these convenient installers
for so many years.

Thanks also to Harlan Stenn, Juergen Perlinger, Brian Utterback, et. al. for
fixing so many bugs for so long.

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada


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