[ntp:hackers] File/directory name conventions

David L. Mills mills at udel.edu
Thu Jul 12 18:42:38 UTC 2007


Guys,

Apologies to raise this issue again, but I didn't see closure in 
previous message exchanges.

It would be good to rationalize the various file and directory name 
conventions. For example, the statsdir command requires a / at the end 
and others not. In the crypto stuff an absolute name begins with a /; 
otherwise, it is relative beginning with the keysdir or statsdir and 
inserted /. Some of the name processing in ntp_util.c looks rather wierd.

It would be nice to have explicit defaults for both the statsdir and 
keysdir. We have many systems here that share /usr/local, but cannot 
write to it. Some systems, including FreeBSD, include a /etc/ntp with 
obvious purpose. The only things that have to be writable and cannot be 
shared are the optional frequency file, optional log file and optiional 
statsdir files. These files, if specified and not present, will be 
created with the given names.

Did we agree that the default keysdir is /etc/ntp and default statsdir 
/var/ntp? Also, I assume the default symmetric keys file name ntp.keys 
in keysdir and default leapseconds file name ntp.leap in keysdir. I'm 
not sure there should be default names for the frequency file and log 
file, as they are activated only if the associated command is specified. 
But, if present, the frequency file should default to keysdir and the 
log file should default to statsdir.

There are a number of optional files whose presents activates some 
function or other. The program looks in "standard" places by default for 
these files and they don't have to be mentioned specifically. These 
include ntp.keys, ntp.leap and the crypto files (only if OpenSSL and the 
crypto command is present). There are commands or command options to 
specify optional names for all files.

Is there something I have overlooked or that we do not yet have closure 
on? As it is, the documentation on ntpd is incomplete and defective.

Dave


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