[ntp:questions] Re: Why ntpd is losing out to openntp at OpenBSD

Danny Mayer mayer at gis.net
Sun Oct 17 00:15:09 UTC 2004


"Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88 at comcast.net> wrote in message news:<5I6dnbldl7Lm8ezcRVn-rw at comcast.com>...
> David L. Mills wrote:
> 
> > Goran,
> >
> >
> >
> > The rfc2030 rules say a host can be a SNTP server only if directly 
> > connected to an external source, such as a GPS radio or NIST modem. To 
> > do that it would have to comply with the NTP protocol as a server, 
> > which means it would have to implement the full suite of server 
> > functions as described in rfc2030. A SNTP client obtaining time from 
> > another server cannot be a server for other clients. To do that, it 
> > would have to comply with the rfc1305 rules and include the NTP 
> > algorithms.
> >
> > Dave
> >
> Does anyone enforce these "rules"?

As a practical matter, no. You either comply with the rfc or you don't.
If you do NOT comply, then you may have interoperability problems with
those servers and clients that do comply. The goal of all IETF RFC's
is to ensure and encourage interoperability. People won't buy or use
products that don't interoperate as they obtain products from many
different vendors. A vendor that doesn't interoperate with products
from other vendors isn't likely to stay in business very long as clients
won't buy products that don't work with other products that they
already have.

Danny



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