Hello,
I'm a bit lose to get a good system for setting computer's clock.
After asking about clockspeed vs ntpd, I choose ntpd.

But it seems to exists several ntpd implementation.
for example the Debian packages contains openntpd (OpenBSD NTP daemon)
which has not many configuration options, like no drift file ...
I've found ntpd in the BSD System Manager's Manual, which has a full
set of options.

Please, is there one reference for NTPD daemon which I can install on
my Linux box ?

My need are simple :
 - getting only one computer which ask time to stratum 2 servers and
then serves the time to my others computers.
 - not asking to much to stratum 2 servers by computing the time drift
of the server's clock.

Thanks for help.

Cyrille37 wrote:
> Hello,
> I'm a bit lose to get a good system for setting computer's clock.
> After asking about clockspeed vs ntpd, I choose ntpd.
> 
> But it seems to exists several ntpd implementation.
> for example the Debian packages contains openntpd (OpenBSD NTP daemon)
> which has not many configuration options, like no drift file ...
> I've found ntpd in the BSD System Manager's Manual, which has a full
> set of options.
> 
> Please, is there one reference for NTPD daemon which I can install on
> my Linux box ?
> 
> My need are simple :
>  - getting only one computer which ask time to stratum 2 servers and
> then serves the time to my others computers.
>  - not asking to much to stratum 2 servers by computing the time drift
> of the server's clock.
> 
> Thanks for help.

The reference implementation of NTP is what you're looking for.  You can get 
it at http://www.ntp.org/downloads.html .  OpenNTPD is something different.

The full documentation for NTP is at 
http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/html/index.html .

-- 
Dennis Hilberg, Jr.      timekeeper(at)dennishilberg(dot)com
NTP Server Information:  http://saturn.dennishilberg.com/ntp.php

On 2007-11-06, Cyrille37 <cyrille37@gmail.com> wrote:

> But it seems to exists several ntpd implementation. for example the
> Debian packages contains openntpd (OpenBSD NTP daemon) which has not
> many configuration options, like no drift file ... I've found ntpd in
> the BSD System Manager's Manual, which has a full set of options.

If you want to use the Debian pre-packaged version of the NTP Reference
Implementation from www.ntp.org install the 'ntp' package. On my Debian
"etch" (stable) system this package is built from NTP 4.2.2p4; the ntp
package testing and unstable branches are currently built from NTP
4.2.4p4 (the current stable release).

If you want to use a partial re-implementation of NTP by the OpenBSD
developers install the 'openntpd' package.

If you choose to compile the NTP Reference Implementation
from www.ntp.org yourself, you will find the source code for
the current stable release and the development snapshot at
http://www.ntp.org/downloads.html and http://support.ntp.org/download

Before you compile NTP on your Debian system issue the following command
to install all of the necessary development tools/libs/etc.:

apt-get build-dep ntp

-- 
Steve Kostecke <kostecke@ntp.org>
NTP Public Services Project - http://support.ntp.org/

Cyrille37 wrote:
> Hello,
> I'm a bit lose to get a good system for setting computer's clock.
> After asking about clockspeed vs ntpd, I choose ntpd.
> 
> But it seems to exists several ntpd implementation.
> for example the Debian packages contains openntpd (OpenBSD NTP daemon)
> which has not many configuration options, like no drift file ...
> I've found ntpd in the BSD System Manager's Manual, which has a full
> set of options.
> 
> Please, is there one reference for NTPD daemon which I can install on
> my Linux box ?
> 
> My need are simple :
>  - getting only one computer which ask time to stratum 2 servers and
> then serves the time to my others computers.
>  - not asking to much to stratum 2 servers by computing the time drift
> of the server's clock.
> 
> Thanks for help.
> 

There is a reference implementation of nptd available from ntp.org! 
Open ntpd is a different (and competing) product which is not supported 
here.  The reference implementation from ntp.org requires that you have 
a C compiler (gcc will do the job).

If you have gcc (and gmake) installed, you can do:
../configure
make
wait for a while and you're done.  You may need to move the ntpd 
executable to wherever your O/S keeps executables (/bin, /usr/bin, /opt, 
.. . . .)

There is a lot of documentation, advice, etc, available at ntp.org.

In article <4730C0C7.8060403@comcast.net>,
Richard B. Gilbert <rgilbert88@comcast.net> wrote:

> Open ntpd is a different (and competing) product which is not supported 

The last time I encountered it, it was an SNTP implementation, which means
it uses the over the wire formats, but doesn't implement all the 
algorithms.  One of the parts of the algorithm that many SNTP 
implementations don't implement is the the clock frequency correction
that was wanted here, although an SNTP could implement it and Open "ntpd"
might.

> here.  The reference implementation from ntp.org requires that you have 

I would rather hope that someone from the open ntpd team does monitor this
newsgroup.  If they don't that would be another good reason to not use it.
(One can reasonably expect Microsoft's w32time team not to monitor here, or
to do so without responding, but I would hope that any open source implementor
would monitor and respond here.)

> a C compiler (gcc will do the job).

It's available pre-compiled for many platforms, including most Linux
distributions.

One of the reasons open ntpd was supposedly created is that the 
ntpd reference implementation licence doesn't fully meet the level
of free-ness required for Open BSD.  Although its fairly clear from
what Dave Mills has said that that is not the intention, he's not 
prepared to change it to clarify the point.