[ntp:questions] Server offset included in served time?

Brian Utterback brian.utterback at sun.com
Mon Sep 15 15:06:22 UTC 2008


Unruh wrote:

> Just because A has credibility does not mean that B does not. credibility
> is not an exclusive property. There can be disagreements between honest men
> without one having "no credibility".
> 
> Note that the NTP algorithms are NOT fundamentally flawed. They are great.
> They are just, in my opinion and measurements, not the best.

Of course, a lot of the issue resides with the definition of *best*. 
Bill has found that in his environment, the algorithms used by chrony 
preform better than those used by NTP. He has empirical data to back 
this up. He also believes that his environment is fairly typical, 
which is his opinion and more speculative. So for him, NTP's 
algorithms are not the *best*.

My recent experiments show that the same algorithms that are great in 
NTP for the long haul, actually hinder its ability to get the offset 
and frequency right under many typical startup conditions. Dr. Mills 
isn't really interested in fixing this, not because he denies it, but 
because he doesn't think it is the best area for his labors. He is 
more interested in the long-haul.

Brian Utterback




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