Hi,

As you said, Solaris 10 has already ntp installed. I followed your recommendation since you told me that the ntp bundled with Solaris has an old version (how to check ntp version by the way? And are we installing here a NTP server or a NTP client?)

Anyway, I installed ntp-4.2.4p4 (default installation). I also disabled the solaris ntp.

What are the post installation steps? I do not see a configuration file. Should I simply copy /etc/inet/ntp.server to /etc/inet/ntp.conf? Isn’t used only by the native ntp of solaris?
What is the difference between /etc/inet/ntp.server and /etc/inet/ntp.client?
Now I have the same binaries installed under /usr/local/bin and /usr/sbin

which ntpq
/usr/sbin/ntpq

which ntpdate
/usr/sbin/ntpdate

which ntpq
/usr/sbin/ntpq

 which ntptrace
/usr/sbin/ntptrace

Should I simply update PATH variable? Is there any better suggestion?

thank you

> Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 10:25:13 +0000 (GMT)
> From: Melanie Pfefer <melanie_pfefer@yahoo.co.uk>
> Sender: questions-bounces+oberman=es.net@lists.ntp.org
> 
> Hi,
> 
> As you said, Solaris 10 has already ntp installed. I followed your
> recommendation since you told me that the ntp bundled with Solaris has
> an old version (how to check ntp version by the way? And are we
> installing here a NTP server or a NTP client?)

It logs the version when it starts, or 
strings `which ntpd` | grep "NTP daemon program"


> Anyway, I installed ntp-4.2.4p4 (default installation). I also
> disabled the solaris ntp.
> 
> What are the post installation steps? I do not see a configuration
> file. Should I simply copy /etc/inet/ntp.server to /etc/inet/ntp.conf?

Not being a Solaris person, I can't say what is in
/etc/inet/ntp.server. 

The config file in most cases is a list of servers. If you don't have a
reference server of your own and don't have contacts with someone that
does, you can use uk.pool.ntp.org, but check with your Internet provider
as many do have available servers. This is pretty likely to have a
symmetric path. Asymmetric paths (that is a different path to the server
and from the server) will result in a time offset which is normally
fairly small, but can be over 100 ms. in some cases.

See the man page "man ntp.conf" or see the documentation at ntp.org.

You should try to list at least three servers to provide assurance that
one going crazy won't mess up your time. More is better. I also
recommend using the 'iburst' argument on each 'server' line. (Do NOT use
'burst'!)

> Isn’t used only by the native ntp of solaris?
I have no idea, but I suspect so.

> What is the difference between /etc/inet/ntp.server and /etc/inet/ntp.client?
> Now I have the same binaries installed under /usr/local/bin and /usr/sbin
> 
> which ntpq
> /usr/sbin/ntpq
> 
> which ntpdate
> /usr/sbin/ntpdate
> 
> which ntpq
> /usr/sbin/ntpq
> 
>  which ntptrace
> /usr/sbin/ntptrace
> 
> Should I simply update PATH variable? Is there any better suggestion?

Again, this is OS specific, so I'll defer to someone who works with
Solaris. 
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman@es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634
Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4  EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751