[ntp:questions] Speed of ntp convergence

Richard B. Gilbert rgilbert88 at comcast.net
Mon Nov 3 23:39:27 UTC 2008


Unruh wrote:
> "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88 at comcast.net> writes:
> 
>> David Woolley wrote:
>>> Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
>>>
>>>> Your opinion!  The designers/developers evidently disagree.
>>> Designer, singular, as far as these issues are concerned.
>>>
>>> At least two new people have disagreed with the designer, recently, on 
>>> the newsgroup, and decided that NTP is unsuitable for their application 
>>> because of its poor startup behaviour.
> 
>> Ntpd was not intended to be bounced up and down like a basketball and I 
>> doubt very much that startup speed was a design consideration.  As my 
>> systems tend to run for months between reboots, the startup behavior of 
>> ntpd is not terribly important to me.
> 
>> If, for some reason, you must reboot your systems daily and you need an 
>> accurate clock within seconds of booting, you will just have to find a 
>> tool better suited to the job than ntpd.
> 
> Of course that is an option. However surely another option is to try to get
> ntp to start up faster-- ntp is not a force of nature, which you either
> accept or reject ( like gravity say) but is a piece of software written by
> people which can be changed, and whose design goals can be influenced. IF
> the startup behaviour of ntp were crucial to its successful operation, then
> you are right, we would simply have to accept its behaviour. But I at least
> do not think it is critical to its successful operation.
> Many features have been added to ntp over the years, and they occured
> because users requested certain features, or the designers decided they
> would be a good idea. 

Then you need to talk to Professor Mills.  A large stack of money might 
improve his receptiveness.

Since the source is available you could, in principle, hack the code 
yourself or pay someone to make it work as you think it should. 
Professor Mills MIGHT even be able to recommend someone with the know 
how to produce a modified version to your specifications.




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