[ntp:questions] SIGINFO for Portable OpenNTP on Linux

Dave Hart davehart at gmail.com
Fri Sep 4 12:10:18 UTC 2009


On Sep 4, 11:42 am, "Maarten Wiltink" <maar... at kittensandcats.net>
wrote:
> "RedGrittyBrick" <RedGrittyBr... at spamweary.invalid> wrote in message
>
> news:4aa0e178$0$2541$da0feed9 at news.zen.co.uk...
>
> > I'm using OpenNTP 3.9p1 (http://www.openntpd.org/) on an RedHat 8 Linux
> > server.
>
> Oh great. Now you'll get a hundred people telling you that OpenNTP is
> Not Real NTP.

It's a knockoff ntpd whose creator chose to use the same executable
name as the reference implementation.  Since this group is, for better
or worse, focused on that reference implementation, let me be the
first of many.  OpenNTPD is Not Real NTPD.  I mean it's not
implementing the draft NTPv4 specification.  It is, on the other hand,
a daemon which uses the NTP protocol.

> > The docs athttp://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=ntpdsay
> >    When ntpd receives a SIGINFO signal, it writes its peer and sensor
> >    status to syslog(3).
>
> Is this the man page for (reference) NTP or does it apply to OpenNTP?

Read it.  It's for "The ntpd daemon"  Any questions?  The confusion is
apparently intentional.  OpenNTPD's creators seem to live in a world
where There Can Be Only One, and to them, the One is what some refer
to as OpenNTPD.

In case it's not already clear, I wish the OpenNTPD creators had taken
the approach of DragonflyBSD, another OS which chooses to distribute
their own NTP daemon:  http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/cgi/web-man?section=8&command=dntpd

Thanks to inertia, I wouldn't bet on the name of OpenBSD's ntpd ever
changing.  But I can grumble.  ;)

Cheers,
Dave Hart




More information about the questions mailing list