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Hi fred & all lurkers!

On Monday 27 October 2003 16:07, you wrote:
> In article <20031027094223.6D10B11153@narn.netbsd.org>,

> "pool.ntp.org" is very neat. Thanks for that!

:-)

> >  - as some nameservers don't do a proper round robin (Sun nscd and
> > apparently some M$ resolvers), you might end up getting the same
> > timeserver address repeatedly. I have introduced {0,1,2}.pool.ntp.org
> > to work around this. (Currently, this is done with CNAMES as a temporary
> > hack. I will do this properly, and also document it when I get time).
>
> What "host" tells me now, is that 1.pool.ntp.org is an
> alias for europe.pool.ntp.org, 2.pool.ntp.org is an alias for
> north-america.pool.ntp.org, while 0... is an alias for pool.ntp.org,
> so it'll still get some of the same hosts as 1 and 2, won't it?

Yes, at the moment. As I've said: this is a crude hack because I don't have=
=20
enough time to code it up properly.

But the goal is, in any case, to make {0,1,2}.pool disjunct, and also to of=
fer=20
{0,1,2} for all zones. (zones with too few servers will of course not be=20
disjunct)

> What about the country domains: "us.pool.ntp.org", "ca.pool.ntp.org",
> and so on? Shouldn't those be preferred? How about listing some of
> those, but commented out, listing some of the continents, but
> commented out, and finally, for Satellites, Lunar and Antartic
> colonists, and others who don't know what continent they're on,
> "{0,1,2}.pool.ntp.org"?

Yes, as soon as I reach the next few milestones I've set myself. Currently,=
=20
the available continent and country zones can only be guessed by trial and=
=20
error (or by fetching a zone transfer from the nameserver). I plan to offer=
=20
all country and continental zones, and then properly document this fact.=20
Zones without servers, or with fewer than x servers (x=3D=3D 3 or 5 or so) =
will=20
be CNAMEd to the continental/global zone.

As soon as this is in place, ntp.conf can be autogenerated from the system=
=20
configuration (assuming the country is available from the language config),=
=20
if distributors wish to do so - or people can just blindly add their countr=
y=20
{0,1,2}.xx.pool.ntp.org as servers.

As I've said, a bit of time is about the only thing I need to get this all=
=20
going. It will come.

>
> Also, in comp.protocols.time.ntp, aspersions have been cast on
> "maxpoll 12". How do you feel about leaving that off?

What 'maxpoll 12'? I don't know what you're talking about. Doesn't say=20
anything on the web site, does it?

:-)

The discussion on the newsgroup wasn't the first time this has come up, so =
I'm=20
giving up here. I just thought that it's an easy way to lessen the load on=
=20
the network (which isn't a problem right now), and that it wouldn't matter=
=20
since the quality of the timeservers is unknown anyway.

> >  - would it be possible to add something like 'if your computer has
> > a static IP address, please consider joining the timeserver pool' to
> > the ntp.conf file? I see you already provide the URL to the project,
> > and mention that it is a volounteer project, so perhaps this is
> > sufficient, but I feel an explicit invitation would be clearer.
>
> Sure. Shouldn't it be made clear that you need other sources
> of time besides pool.ntp.org consumers (reference clocks and
> those with good relations with other time servers), lest you
> be flooded with well-meaning but non-helpful volunteers?

http://www.pool.ntp.org/#join tells people to use statically configured=20
timeservers. It doesn't worry me if they are all using other timeservers fr=
om=20
the pool - ntp is a very good protocol, even if we get to providing stratum=
 5=20
timeservers, we won't have more than a couple of 10ths of a second offset=20
from the 'true' time - and for just syncing a computer or network to an=20
outside time source, this is good enough. Computers where relative time=20
offsets matter (NFS mounted home dirs, data logging, ...) should be syncing=
=20
internally anyway, and anybody who really cares about the quality of his ti=
me=20
service shouldn't be using the pool anyway.

(Oh, and: yes, the redirection from www.pool.ntp.org to fortytwo.ch/time on=
=20
the web page will disappear in the future, too.)

greetings
=2D -- vbi

=2D --=20
You will pay for your sins!
If you have already paid, please register with the front desk.
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