Re: [gpsd-dev] Moving ntpd to an open VCS

[Hal Murray]

> And they can't nail down a few IPs for the job??

If you are a big ISP, it might be reasonable to nail down a few IPs.

If you are a small organization, trying to nail down an IP Address commits 
you to working with your current ISP, and even then, they may change the 
rules with no warning unless you get the paperwork right.

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address@hidden said:
> I think it's not widely understood that most distros provide their own ntp
> servers to their clients and that the dhcp setting is often ignored.

> ntp.ubuntu.com, etc. 

I think it's more complicated than that.

host ntp.fedora.com resolves to one IP Address that doesn't answer NTP 
requests.  (at least from my IP address)

ntp.debian.com, ntp.netbsd.com, and ntp.freebsd.com all say not found: 
3(NXDOMAIN)


There was a plan to get things like <N>.<distro>.pool.ntp.org to redirect to 
<N>.pool.ntp.org
The idea was to have a redirect in there.  If some distro did something 
stupid you could fix it.

0.netbsd.pool.ntp.org and such work for me.  (I haven't checked the servers.  
I assume they are part of the pool.)

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In case you aren't familiar with the problems with stupid NTP clients, please 
check out:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTP_server_misuse_and_abuse

If I was teaching computer geeks, I'd put Dave Plonka's paper on the 
must-read (and understand) list.
  http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~plonka/netgear-sntp/

---------

This is getting (has long gone?) off-topic for gpsd lists.

The key idea is that time is tangled up with cryptography.  Most crypto 
schemes assume that they know the time.

If DNS is using crypto that depends upon time, you can't use DNS to find your 
time servers.  Hard-wiring IP Addresses has a long history of problems.  (See 
above.)

If each ISP had their own NTP servers, it would be reasonable to hard-wire 
their IP Addresses into boxes like home routers/modems that were distributed 
to their customers.  (or at least more reasonable)


-- 
These are my opinions.  I hate spam.