[ntp:hackers] Receiving smeared time

Harlan Stenn stenn at ntp.org
Sun Jun 28 03:16:56 UTC 2015


Hal Murray writes:
> 
> stenn at ntp.org said:
> > If ntpd gets a timestamp with one of these refids, what should it do?
> 
> Wrong question.  Almost all servers won't get updated, so the important 
> question is what will old servers do with new packets?
> 
> > There's very little time left to make changes before the leap second.
> > What *needs* to be done before the leap second?
> 
> Documentation!  Documentation!!  Documentation!!!

Yes, please write documentation for this!

This feature cannot be used unless:

- you know how to build ntpd with it enabled
- you configure it in the ntp.conf file

and to do these things without adequate documentation that means you
know enough to look at http://bugs.ntp.org/2855 and read the code.

> People who are considering smearing need to know which configurations
> will work and which ones will get confused or cause confusion.

Yes.  And to implement and document these features requires support -
volunteers and/or $.  The people who cared enough to volunteer their
time to actually do things were able to get us this far by this time.
No funding has yet been made available for this work.

> > What comes later? 
> 
> Put smearing on the list for version 5.

Done.

-- 
Harlan Stenn <stenn at ntp.org>
http://networktimefoundation.org - be a member!


More information about the hackers mailing list