[ntp:questions] What exactly does "Maximum Distance Exceded" mean?

Joseph Gwinn joegwinn at comcast.net
Tue Mar 17 02:23:55 UTC 2009


In article <20090316063319.F2674 at bulldog.localhost.org>,
 hundoj at comcast.net (Rob Neal) wrote:

> On Sun, 15 Mar 2009, Joseph Gwinn wrote:
> 
> > In article <qo6dnZLJDv8z4CDUnZ2dnUVZ_hWWnZ2d at giganews.com>,
> > "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88 at comcast.net> wrote:
> >
[snip]
> >
> >>> The FAQ has to be the place for such explanations.
> >>
> >> I'm not sure if this qualifies as an FAQ as I don't recall that it has
> >> come up before.  FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions.
> >
> > RAQ then?  Rarely Asked Questions
> >
> > Seriously, I can't believe that I'm the only person in history to be
> > perplexed by these status codes, and those little three-word summaries
> > are a bit telegraphic.
>   	You have lots of company, sadly. A decoder function would
>   	be 'Good'. There are obstacles to this, as remarked by
>   	others, and a serious lack of volunteer time to code a
>   	solution. No one will stop you, if you wish to contribute....
>   	In the current build I find the TEST status codes in
>   	ntp.h. They have changed, from release to release, so
>   	consult your source for particulars.
>   	There has been considerable improvement in NTP from
>   	V3 to V4. You should consider upgrading, it really
>   	is better.

I already have a decoder function, coded in Mathematica, based on 
Appendix B of RFC-1305, which ought to work for NTPv3.  The problem is 
one of documentation, as RFC-1305 is pretty telegraphic, although it 
does point one to the descriptions of the relevant tests.

I gather that the actual NTPv3 code does not really follow RFC-1305.  
That seems to be the bottom line.

Joe




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