NTP - default /etc/ntp.conf

[David Malone]

> > We are supposed to contact the people running the pool and ask for
> > a freebsd.pool.ntp.org subdomain.

> That's a good idea.

OK - should I contact the pool guys and ask for freebsd.pool.org?

> > Second, we shouldn't have the local clock configured by default.

> Why?

When Redhat did this, it caused a variety of niggles and compaints
in the ntp community. The recent thread in comp.protocols.time.ntp
gives one example where the local clock came under suspicion for
causing various problems. It also interfers with people using real
local clocks, where the system clock is controled by something other
than NTP, and you just want NTP to distribute the time.

> > The local clock should only be configured on a single server in a
> > NTP domain that might be disconnected from the rest of the tree.
> > Since the default config is a client config, it doesn't make sense
> > to have the local clock configured. Even if it was a server config,
> > it still wouldn't make sense, because it is only useful if a single
> > server has it configured.

> I do not see the point in removing it, it helps to keep the ntpd daemon
> running if for some reason it loses the "real" ntp servers.

It's definitely a misconfiguration to ship it by default. If you
have many clients all with a local clock configured, then, when
disconnected, they all just follow themselves rather than following
the clock on a server. If you have it configured on several servers
you end up with some clients following each of the servers, but
they won't all stay together unless you're lucky. For this use of
the local clock, you only want one local clock per island that might
become disconnected.

(Also, we probably really want people to run in orphan mode rather
than local clock mode, but we can wait a little longer until orphan
mode is more commonly deployed, IMHO...)

	David.