[ntp:hackers] Lab notes

David L. Mills mills at udel.edu
Fri May 5 18:14:22 UTC 2006


Hackers,

My grad student Sachin Kamboj has completed the first step in 
overhauling the configuration code. It is on deacon:/backroom/ntp4x now 
in ntp_config.c, ntp_config.tab.c, ntp_config.h, ntpsim.c and scanner.c. 
Sachin says it works, but when I tried it with the deacon ntp.conf, it 
segfaulted.

There's things I like and things I don't. The source code needs 
reformatting and much commentary. Allegedly, it supports all the current 
configuration options and is table-driven. It uses bison to construct 
the syntax tree, which is built in one pass by the parser, then 
interpreted to call the various code segments. This makes it easy to 
change the grammar, add/delete commands and so forth. I have asked 
Sachin to write a user's guide that describes how to do this.

The new program does away with the messy simulator commands and provides 
a discrete simulator with multiple sources, rates and schedule. In 
principle, it is possible to enter configuration file statements at any 
time once the daemon is started. I'll talk about that in another message.

Dave


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