[ntp:questions] Suitable ntp.conf for public NTP server?

Dennis Hilberg Jr dhilberg at comcast.net
Sun Oct 29 17:31:09 UTC 2006


"David Woolley" <david at djwhome.demon.co.uk> wrote in message 
news:T1162112019 at djwhome.demon.co.uk...
| In article <LZSdnVUGeNWTw9nYnZ2dnUVZ_s2dnZ2d at comcast.com>,
| Dennis Hilberg Jr <dhilberg at comcast.net> wrote:
|
| > It works great.  So if/when my IP address changes, all I would have to 
do is
| > update the A record in my web's DNS configs.  Which I think would be 
easier
|
| ntpd never re-resolves domain names, so any servers which change address
| are lost until the next reboot.

This would definitely pose a challenge if my IP changed.  So ntpd resolves 
the domain once, then uses the resulting IP address until the next reboot or 
service restart, correct?

| Also, as a correctly operated system would not change IP addresses except
| after extended downtime, it is generally assumed that these IP address
| changes are the result of a deliberate policy to frustrate the operation
| of servers.  It may just be that you are currently operating under
| circumstances where that policy isn't working well.

My server is on a network behind a router, and the router and modem never 
get turned off.  Could this be why I keep the same IP for extended periods? 
Comcast told me once that their lease period for the dynamic IP addresses is 
one week, but almost always lease the same IP continuously.  I was going to 
call Comcast last night and inquire about purchasing a static IP (if that's 
even possible), but didn't get around to it.

|
| > server time-nw.nist.gov            iburst       # Microsoft Corporation,
| > Redmond, WA
|
| I know this one is aliased as the Microsoft one, but is it really run by
| Microsoft, or do they just pay NIST to be able to use it in Windows?
| From what I've read, all the NIST servers are overloaded to the point
| where they are not the best choice and this one may well be particularly
| overloaded.

All that I know about this server is what I gather from here: 
http://ntp.isc.org/bin/view/Servers/TimeNwNistGov.  According to that link 
the server is not running a Windows OS (surprising).   Maybe Microsoft 
allowed the government to come in and set up a server using their network. 
You may be right about it being overloaded, as under 'ntpq -p' it's always 
flagged with the hyphen (-).  I was considering replacing it with a 
different server.  I chose it only because of its proximity to me, and low 
latency. 





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