[ntp:questions] synchronization distance

David Woolley david at ex.djwhome.demon.invalid
Mon Dec 6 22:28:55 UTC 2010


Mike S wrote:
> At 02:10 PM 12/4/2010, David Woolley wrote...
>> To a large extent I would agree with you, but the net effect of this 
>> is to say "if you work for a marketing led company (probably true of 
>> most of the Fortune 500), do not use NTP as it is almost certain that 
>> your IT department has a strict Microsoft policy for their core 
>> systems, and are not time synchronisation experts".
> 
> Your complaint is misplaced. NTPv4 is well defined, see RFC 5905 ( 

What is my complaint that is misplaced?  I'm not complaining about 
NTPv4.  I am, to some extent complaining about Microsoft and I am 
complaining about system admins who use w32time without actually 
researching its capabilities.  I'm also complaining to some extent about 
NTPv4 supporters who don't seem to want to understand how NTP protocols 
are used in the real world.

> http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5905 ). The RFC states "In NTPv4, tau 
> ranges from 4 (16 s) to 17 (36 h)." Just as with many previous 
> things-MS, they've gone their own way, and are not following the 
> specification. They simply don't play well with others. Not following 
> the specifications (like using an improper addr-spec such as 
> "david at ex.djwhome.demon.invalid" in an RFC 822 message) breaks things.

It uses a perfectly valid RFC 2606 domain name.  See section 2.




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