[ntp:questions] Power-saving patch to NTP

Jan Ceuleers janspam.ceuleers at skynet.be
Sun May 18 16:17:24 UTC 2008


Unruh wrote:
> I am totally confused. The cpu is in sleep mode. The cpu is not doing
> anything. ntp is NOT running. ntp cannot wake up the cpu because ntp is not
> running. Only external events can wake up the cpu, and ntp is not an
> external event. So, once the cpu is woken up, and ntp can run, what does it
> matter if ntp then runs?

Ntp runs whenever one of the pieces of hardware it watches reports an 
event. One of those is the once-per-second wakeup call.

But as I said elsewhere in this thread, I don't think that the important 
thing is ntpd's own power footprint, but rather the implications of the 
platform's attempts at saving power. Or as someone else put it: the 
basic assumptions ntpd makes of the behaviour of the platform (hardware 
and OS) while it's _not_ running (i.e. between invocations of itself).

Cheers, Jan




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