[ntp:questions] Local (own site) NTP servers.

Kevin Oberman oberman at es.net
Thu Jul 23 16:00:49 UTC 2009


> From: Thomas Laus <lausts at acm.org>
> Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:26:02 -0500
> Sender: questions-bounces+oberman=es.net at lists.ntp.org
> 
> On 2009-07-23, G8KBV <g8kbvdave at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > Wonder if this will get posed, or returned to me..
> >
> > Hi...
> >
> > Been lurking for a while.
> >
> > Also, been messing about trying to get a local (to me) GPS
> > Disciplined NTP server working, based on David Taylor's work
> > with FreeBSD, I think I have one of those configured OK, but
> > I've got other issues with FreeBSD on that machine that sort
> > of prevent me using it for unattended "appliance" use.  It
> > keeps generating system emails for the Root user, and I can't
> > find out why!  Other than its something about recovered editor
> > files?
> >
> Dave:
> 
> You will probably not find a better timekeeper than using the FreeBSD
> machine.  The resources required are very minimal compared to running
> any Windows version.
> 
> You might try logging into the FreeBSD computer as
> root and reading the mail using the 'mail' command.  Select the message
> number, after the message has been read, press the 'd' key.  When all of
> the messages for root have been read, press the 'q' key to quit.  That
> will clear all of root's unread messages.
> 
> To redirect your syslog messages to the console instead of a file, edit
> the '/etc/syslog' file and point all of the entries to 'dev/console'.
> It is not a good idea to stop the log outputs by directing things to
> '/dec/null'.  You might want to read some of them.
> 
> The unrecovered editor sessions can be read by starting vi with the '-r'
> flag.  This is really about using FreeBSD for a timekeeper, you really can't go
> wrong.  Your OS related setup questions should really be directed to a
> FreeBSD newsgroup, they are much better at handling questions and can
> always point you to a website for more in depth answers.

The mail is a result of the daily system cleanup-checking jobs.

You can stop the jobs from running by editing /etc/crontab and
commenting out the "periodic" lines. I would not recommend this,
though. I'd suggest creating a .forward file in /root containing an
e-mail address where the messages should be sent. There are usually one
or two messages Sunday through Friday with an extra one every Saturday
and on the first of every month.

They will give you information on any system problems as well as a
very useful security report. (They are pretty boring, but when they are
not, it's a big deal.)
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634
Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4  EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751



More information about the questions mailing list