[ntp:questions] Time reset

Unruh unruh-spam at physics.ubc.ca
Sat May 3 04:45:09 UTC 2008


David Woolley <david at ex.djwhome.demon.co.uk.invalid> writes:

>Ulrich Windl wrote:
>> David Woolley <david at ex.djwhome.demon.co.uk.invalid> writes:
>> 
>>> Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
>>>
>>>> that people do some very strange things with computer clocks.  I'm thinking,
>>>> in particlar, of at least one individual who deliberately set his clock to
>>>> an incorrect time in order to see if Ntpd would correct it.
>>> Many people do this.  It is the naive users' way of testing that ntpd "works".
>> 
>> Yes, but many forget to restart ntpd immediately after having chnaged the

>They don't forget.  The naive users who run this sort of test have no 
>idea that it is an unreasonable thing to do.  In fact, restarting ntpd 
>on the client would invalidate their test, as the test is about the 
>ability of ntpd to track time jumps without any manual intervention.

>I'm not suggesting that ntpd should accommodate naive user tests, but 
>just pointing out that they are rather common.

But ntp arguably should handle jumps in time or frequency faster than the
hours or days it takes now. 



>> clock. Not having done so is as if the clock suddenly got a transient hardware
>> defect. NTP is not designed repairing hardware defects. It syncs (good)
>> clocks.
>> 
>> (I had to say)
>> 
>> Ulrich




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