[ntp:questions] Re: asyncronous path between "time client" andntp server

Maarten Wiltink maarten at kittensandcats.net
Mon Oct 10 21:39:24 UTC 2005


"Bob Beers" <bob.beers at gmail.com> wrote in message
news:4f6ba3b0510101237o65137a18nad6fd4eb79c3b2f6 at mail.gmail.com...

> I will change to br.ntp.pool.org, but how do I specify 4 unique
> servers in br.pool? 0., 1., and 2. seem to work, but 3. does not
> resolve. How would I specify all (6) br servers?

You don't. The pool was originally aimed at people who were thought
to need "a" server. Synchronisation in the tens of milliseconds,
most of the time.

The 0., 1., and 2. subrecords were added to assist people _with
poor DNS resolvers_ in getting one better than that. One better,
not two. You would configure three random servers to guard against
the chance that you accidentally got the same one twice. You don't
do it for better time.

Since then, expectations of the pool (especially the spread of the
served DNS records) have been raised, and some few people have also
become markedly more religious about the four server minimum.

I would maintain that if you're worried about that, you should not
be using the pool but finding a better ISP.

The pool was never meant to give you an exhaustive list of all NTP
servers in any region. It was meant to load-balance them between
many clients.

Groetjes,
Maarten Wiltink





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