OpenBSD Project Releases OpenNTPd

44BSD writes "The folks at OpenBSD have announced OpenNTPd, a BSD-licensed implementation of the NTP protocol. As with OpenSSH, there are two teams responsible for the code, which, like OpenSSH, is available in pure OpenBSD and portable versions." TLA FYI: This Wikipedia entry offers a quick overview of the Network Time Protocol. Read on below for some more on OpenNTPd.

"As explained at the project home page:

One team does strictly OpenBSD-based development, aiming to produce code that is as clean, simple, and secure as possible. We believe that simplicity without the portability "goop" allows for better code quality control and easier review. The other team then takes the clean version and makes it portable, by adding the portability "goop" so that it will run on many operating systems.

I have been using the OpenBSD variant of this daemon as it exists in the OpenBSD 3.5-current branch of the OS, and it has worked flawlessly with absolutely zero configurational effort. The supplied config file is sufficient to have the daemon synch against a randomly chosen stratum 2 server (pool.ntp.org, served up via round-robin A records). Aside from its simplicity, this daemon offers the ability to be selectively bound to a machine's network interfaces, rather than having to bind to all, as is the case with xntpd. The features provided by this implementation are probably sufficient for the majority of NTP users, and when the promised support for GPS and radio clocks is added, still more will be able to choose OpenNTPd. This additional diversity is welcome, indeed."

Comments

Why?

[crbowman]

What was the problem with the old NTPd? I thought it was open source.

Re:Why?

[eeg3]

The license is ambiguous, and uses the term "without fee" in a way that could easily be construed as "you can distribute this if you don't charge a fee" instead of "you have permission to do stuff, without having to pay a fee to me".

In either such case, OpenBSD be putting itself into harm's way. I personally don't like how they refuse to release iso's, so that you have to buy the CDs. The CD, mind you, is an unfortunate whopping $40.

However, it's good to see a "free-er" version of ntpd out there. It seems like OpenBSD is competing with GNU in the political aspect of software.

Re:Why?

[bahamat]

I can think of a reason.

I haven't owned a computer with a floppy drive for over 5 years, and I use PC's. No, I take that back, my last laptop had a floppy/battery bay that I always had the battery in.

It's true that I could very easily create my own el torito cd with their floppy images, most of my friends can't. OBSD could get a lot more users with very little effort.

So that makes three

[peter]

We now have the original ntpd, chrony, and openntpd. I've been using chronyd for a while now, and it's pretty easy to set up. I like how the server can be controlled or queried by a client, chronyc, from the command line without restarting it. I also like being able to limit how often it queries the timeserver, to make sure I don't over-do it. AFAIK, there's nothing bad about chrony. (It's GPL, though, not BSD. The more the merrier.)
http://chrony.sunsite.dk/

Oh, and my ISP has its own stratum 2 server, z3.eastlink.ca. :)