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NTP Pool Reaches 1000 Servers, Needs More
hgerstung writes "This weekend the NTP Pool Project reached the milestone of 1000 servers in the pool. That means that in less than two years the number of servers has doubled. This is happy news, but the 'time backbone' of the Internet, provided for free by volunteers operating NTP servers, requires still more servers in order to cope with the demand. Millions of users are synchronizing their PC's system clock from the pool and a number of popular Linux distributions are using the NTP pool servers as a time source in their default ntp configuration. If you have a static IP address and your PC is always connected to the Internet, please consider joining the pool. Bandwidth is not an issue and you will barely notice the extra load on your machine."
This sounds like a job for Google.
Seriously. They are working to own every other bit of information. Why not "own" the method by which machines maintain time by throwing a thousand machines at it (an insignificant number compared to the 500k or more that make up their own server farm).
"Bandwidth is not an issue and you will barely notice the extra load on your machine."
If that is the case, why do they need more servers?
Selling software wont make you money, selling a service will.
I must mention that right now by signing up for the pool now you also have a chance to get some really cool time keeping equipment. :-)
--
ask bjoern hansen
"Pool's closed"?
I for one.. *want* to be welcomed as a time-wielding overlord!
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
http://ctrambler.wordpress.com/2006/04/18/ctramble r-to-dlink-pay-for-the-excess-ntp-traffic-your-pro duct-generates/
"Bandwidth is not an issue and you will barely notice the extra load on your machine."
And then Netgear will go and hard code your ip address into one of it's dumbass products, and you're entire network will be crushed offline... permanently.
The problem with these time servers is that many of them are not accurate. I use Ubuntu and when looking through all of the time servers, nearly all of them are off by as much as three minutes. I use http://time.gov/ as my source for accurate time. The atomic clocks are run by the Department of Commerce agency, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and its military counterpart, the U. S. Naval Observatory (USNO). Readings from the clocks of these agencies contribute to world time, called Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The time maintained by both agencies should never differ by more than 0.0000001 seconds from UTC.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I can understand the desire/need for NTP servers. The question for me becomes, does this reduce the quality of chips used in PCs? The chips that keep track of time don't have to be as accurate since, "hey, it can just sync up with NTP server." Once you let something simple like time slide, maybe they let other issues slide too because "Who is going to notice?"
The load is barely noticeable...or at least until the servers get slashdotted!
I think that a better method could be used to encourage diversity. They should take a page from the root DNS servers, or Akamai. Either use BGP anycast, which is what most of the root dns servers do now, which will probably never happen. Or, have a zone that network carriers should use on their local DNS servers, and by way of DNS lookups, encourage their customers to use. ntp.org has a default set of values for say time.overload.ntp.org that reflects the current pool. But I, as an ISP make my DNS servers directly answer queries for overload.ntp.org, and make entires such as:
time IN A 1.2.3.4
time IN A 1.2.3.5
where 1.2.3.4 and 1.2.3.5 are ntp servers on my local network. I don't allow people off my network to query my DNS servers for recursive queries, and the ntp.org DNS servers never tell anyone to use my name servers for this space anyways. This would mean that only my customers that use my DNS servers (about 99%) of them, would ever get answers for my time servers, and they would definitely be close.
And anyone whose network carrier doesn't bother to set this up, still gets generic answers from ntp.org. This works much better than just a big pool full of 1000 servers worldwide, even if you bother to use the country code dns regions, you still aren't always getting an ntp server anywhere near you.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
Comcast's addresses aren't static: it's all managed via DHCP. They have what they call "permanent IP addresses", which means that they won't change them very often, but they reserve the right to change them any time they want. I've had Comcast since they bought out the remains of AT&T Broadband, and they've only changed it twice (once because I upgraded to the next speed tier.)
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
If bandwidth requirements are low, I wouldn't mind joining the pool. But my ip is semi-dynamic: dynamically assigned, but rarely changes. I use DynDNS to get it.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Is to have DSL/cable modems provide the NTP service since they're facing the internet anyway.
Like a lot of guys here, we have an atomic self setting clock that works from radio broadcast. They are cheap now and work very well. What I am wondering is, do they make some sort of attachment clock, so it can set your computer's time that way? Like an atomic clock/usb cable connect thingee? Seems like if they did, we wouldn't need all these NTP servers, the government does the radio broadcasting and it is as accurate as it gets.
Have they asked the Storm network operators? I think they could donate a few thousand machines from around the globe pretty easily.
Do they have a VMWare image I can run? Real lite like FreeNAS?
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
This where a zero config version of NTP servers and client would be useful, to allow for the discovery of an NTP server on the local network, unless it already supports multicast discovery.
I am sure that there are many private networks where computers are still connecting to external time servers, when the could easily use a server on the local network.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The component that actually determines the stability and accuracy of the real-time clock in your PC is the timebase crystal, not the RTC chip itself.
Like every other component in mass-market electronic gear, it is chosen with minimum cost as the primary consideration. Such "value engineering" also has done away with the tiny trimmer capacitor that used to be present on most motherboards, which could be used (along with a frequency counter) to tweak the oscillator frequency for better accuracy.
For real accuracy, the timebase oscillator needs to be kept at a constant temperature, which isn't possible in a PC that gets turned on and off. Ideally, the crystal (or the entire oscillator circuit) is enclosed in a package equipped with a heater element and temperature sensor, and kept at a constant temperature. Such a circuit is called an OCXO, or Oven Compensated Crystal Oscillator, and is standard equipment on laboratory grade equipment like frequency counters and signal generators.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
If you reread the parent a bit, they asked if it was static -ENOUGH-, not if it was static.
Theoretically I have a dynamic IP address. It hasn't changed in 7 years.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Try openntpd. Its a bit more robust than the ISC daemon.
Use OpenNTPd! No seriously, there's a bug on ntpd's bugzilla asking for this that has been opened in 2003 and it's still not fixed. ntpd is so badly written that no one dares to write a patch.
And people wonder why I hate every program written by ISC...
Some how this should all be merged into the bittorrent client.
He who knows not and knows he knows not is a wise man. He who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool.
Are there any ntp daemons that don't require root privileges? I imagine it wouldn't be to hard to maintain a delta from the system clock. If so, I wouldn't mind running something like this from a coloc.
Could you clarify that a little more please? Why does getting a static IP remove the option of TV service? I cant see any technical problems for that to be the case, so it must be some oddly written contract.
I would imagine with some deep digging, such a contract would be found to be anti-competitive.
On a side note, its pretty obvious why the state of broadband in the US is what it is. TeleVision is the sacred (cash) cow. Combine this with the strong opposition to any sort of NetNeutrality, and the game these TV/Internet/Phone companies are playing is becoming very clear. Not to mention VERY disturbing.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Shouldn't the "milestone" be 1024 servers?
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
Why not design a time protocol that's peer-to-peer? Most people, like me and probably 99% of the people on the internet, can make due with time being within a few seconds (or frankly, within a couple of minutes) of accuracy, so if you only have a few nodes at the top that actually get the time from NTP and anyone who actually needs really accurate time using NTP, everyone else can share the time.
Seems to me that would get rid of the need for thousands of servers and would suit the needs of most users.
I had hoped my comment would be modded up quickly but it hasn't so forgive me for asking that someone mod my parent post up so that volunteers won't be scared off for fear of bandwidth overload. I've already got excellent karma so I'm not asking this for me, I'm asking for the sake of the pool.
Is this why the default time.nist.gov and time.windows.com servers don't work sometimes?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I'm sure you're right about the low cost of the PC RTC components. However, I still don't understand why I've long been able to buy a watch for $2-$15 that keeps better time than any PC I've had.
Use:
For those interested, you can change your Windows time servers to NTP servers in the registry here: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Cur rentVersion\DateTime\Servers]
You want fun, go home and buy a monkey!
I've been in the pool for years. It's a great service.
This doesn't add up. If it doesn't burden existing machines, then why do we need more of them?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Sounds like you are trying to save face for missing a bit of info.
There is static:dhcp. And there is static:dynamic. The first comparison only applies to IP addresses. The second comparison applies to many things. Using the first comparison, your IP is either static or dhcp. The second comparison is a scale, with infinite variations between.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
I would join but only if there is an NTP server implemented in Java. I do have a few windows servers but I am not a professional admin and don't know much about ntp servers, so I don't trust any native program. If it would run on a Java virtual machine than it is OK.
Because your PC is doing a lot more work than your watch. It doesn't have time to keep good time. Stop watching all that porn, and it'll help.
Um, you realize that ntpd is rejecting the server that disagrees with the others by ~19 milliseconds, right? It's using the top one as its source, backed up by the bottom two.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Your watch keeps good time because it is kept at constant temperature by your body.
Use the -I option.
But this feature seems to have been implemented back in February 2005.
Life is wet, then you dry.
Maybe they stopped using crystals and are just using capacitors.
Or they just don't bother to calibrate/adjust the crystals.
Flamebait subject, but I kind of mean it.
I was in the pool for a while but quit because ntpd is wholly incapable of protecting itself. I ended up with about 50 abusers that polled for time once a second. I tried using the built-in filtering but it doesn't work, so ntpd was gleefully replying to each and every one of those requests.
Keep in mind that it has the logic to detect abusers - it just won't do anything about it. Well, it can be made to send a KOD (Kiss Of Death) packed that should make clients blacklist the server, but those same broken clients ignore KODs. I kid you not, the standard recommendation is to firewall them off.
What? ntpd already knows its internal state, including a list of abusers. The code could be as simple as "def sendTimePacket(clientaddr): if clientaddr in blacklist then return; else sendpacket(clientaddr);", but they suppose that it's easier to write an external program to monitor that state, general firewall rules, connect to the firewall host, and insert them. No, really, that's not easier at all.
I like NTP and I liked the idea of helping serve it to the world, but until ISC decides to support at least basic anti-DOS functionality in ntpd, I won't be joining the pool again. And by "support", I mean at least lend moral support to people who would be willing to the work, instead of just telling them to alter their firewall.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
http://www.timetools.co.uk/
They are a lot more than $20. Now I am just waiting for the customer to
provide another hole in the roof so we can get our GPS antenna outside.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
A cheap wristwatch uses the same type of crystal found in a PC's clock, but the body heat from your wrist tends to keep the internals of the watch at a nice constant temperature.
Even the cheapest watches that I have seen have an internal trimmer for adjustment, as well.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
640 servers ought to be enough for anybody.
-I does interfaces, not IPs. However in my case it does not ntpd from listening on several IPs. Thanks!
>However, I still don't understand why I've long been able to buy a watch for $2-$15 that keeps better time than any PC I've had.
:-(
Because it's $2 - $15? If a brand of motherboard went up $2 - $15, would you buy it over another one? Perhaps. Nobody else would, though.
The current parts are so cheap were talking 2 or 3 pennies of cost.
This is what I do:
1) traceroute www.google.com
2) Pick the first router that belongs to my ISP.
3) Use it as my time server.
One per local network, not one per computer. No need at all for one per computer.. And the main point was they were saying that it was becoming burdensome and needing all these time servers, begging for help in other words. And you need a true static IP to help, which eliminates 99% of the computing public right there, as in, most people don't pay for an expensive business account so they don't get static IPs. They may get a dynamic that doesn't change for a long time, but it isn't static.. I just a thought a neat way to do it per company or per household would be an attachment device to the clocks, or rather, a clock that was designed to also fulfill this purpose. So it cost 15 dollars instead of ten, who cares, they are cheap now and the extra circuitry and attachment cord couldn't cost that much more to add it on with USB.
The RTC chip runs independently of the CPU, powered by a battery, which is why it keeps time at all when the system is powered down. However, I have wondered if the CPU's access of the RTC might somehow skew it slightly.
There might be something to that, as internal PC temperature sure isn't stable, especially if the machine isn't always on or off. That would be an interesting theory to test. I could buy three identical cheap watches, then wear one, put one in the freezer, and one on my desk.
AH HA! Today, I actually didn't fall for your .sig!! ;-P I'm embarrassed to admit that it's caught me more than once...
man, I feel like mold.
I started running a local NTP server and advertising it in DHCP because I felt bad about all of the crazy systems and devices out there that constantly submit NTP requests only minutes or less apart.
If you run ethereal for a few minutes chances are you too might notice the same crap on your network.... Instead of more NTP servers maybe we just need to fix some of our more brain-dead NTP clients to act responsibly.
Sorry bout that.
;).
Still, it's good to know you're no longer falling for it. Hope that makes you less likely to click on other dubious links as well.
One of my colleague's sending dubious links in his skype today, and the other day I got IM'ed a message that said to the effect that the person's mom died in a car crash and linked to the pictures.
Another thing you might want to watch out for - stuff like tinyurl. You can turn on the "preview" feature in tinyurl, but I wouldn't assume that'll always work - after all it could be tinyur1.com instead of tinyurl.com
hay guys wuts goin on in here?
And it's fricking bizar there is so much bullshit modded insightfull here. NTP works best with consistent latency, the chances of getting consistent latency are generally bigger with server which are close to you, but the current NTP implementations are not trying magically locate a close server. They will use the servers they happen to get. You will have to edit your ntp.conf to use .pool.ntp.org to get at least servers in your own country. Better yet, get an ISP which provides a decent set of ntp servers and use these.
Not sure if anyone answered this or not, I'm not going to read thru the 8-10 replies to see if any of them are right either. So here it goes. Comcast IPs are Dynamic, unless you get a business account an opt (ie pay more) for a static one. They change differently depending on the load on the network. Anywhere from 1-4 times a month is the norm, however I have seen them last as long as 6 months. Mine lasted 3 months before changing. It used to be (long time ago) anytime you powercycled your modem the IP renewed from a list of free IP's but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
man, I feel like mold.
If only the ISPs wouldn't block it...
Every machine in the world connecting via TCP to ask "what time is it?" sure doesn't sound very efficient does it?
The same router that is routing all your packets should run a very light weight time deamon that gets the correct time from it's gateway once a day, and then gives the time to all clients on the network it is servicing. This would very nicely spread the load out across the network.