[ntp:hackers] 1. ntpd's sync state (Harlan Stenn)

Steve Kostecke kostecke at ntp.org
Fri May 30 02:28:34 UTC 2008


Harlan Stenn said:

>And while this may be good for tracking the "state" on the *local*
>system, I want to be sure it is just as easy to get this information for
>a remote machine too.

There was no quoted material so I have no idea what "this" is.

We do need to move beyond the over-engineering / navel-gazing that is
too common in this forum.

Ntpd needs a definitive _easy_ to read indicator of sync status. All
of this noodling around decoding vaguely documented status bytes, or
using get_ntptime (sorry PHK), is fine for a research project but is a
non-starter for a _product_.

Ntpd needs to provide simple, easy to understand logging as Judah has
suggested. And it needs to be enabled by default. The existing logging
is not terribly useful to the average end user (if it is even enabled at
all).

In fact, ntpd is sorely in need of a set of reasonable defaults. It
should JustWork(tm) at a minimal level (e.g. as a leaf-node pool client)
in a secure manner if invoked without a configuration file.

The ntpd user interface is badly in need of revision. The current
disparate collection of random utilities in various (compiled and
interpreted) languages is not what one would expect to accompany a
polished _product_.

-- 
Steve Kostecke <kostecke at ntp.org>
NTP Public Services Project http://support.ntp.org/
Public Key at http://support.ntp.org/Users/SteveKostecke


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