Shippable ntp.conf files for the HOWTO

[Hal Murray]

esr at thyrsus.com said:
> I am attempting to assemble a gallery of working ntp.conf files that we can
> ship with the HOWTO. My intentions include adding these to the NTP
> documentation as tutorial examples. 

You are diving down another rathole.  Save that for another day.

For the HOWTO, you should focus on one that is appropriate for your goals.  
(Which goes back to figuring out what your goals are and telling us.)

What are you using for ntp.conf on your test setups?  Does it work?


> uses gpsd via the SHM channel and IPs for three public timeservers.  I'm
> told the latter is bad practice and should be got rid of; I want someone
> wuth operational experience to show me (and 

There are 2 reasons not to wire in IP Addresses of public servers, both 
important.

The first is that it sets a bad example of policy.  Some chain of idiots will 
copy them and we will end up with another example for the ntp-abuse wiki 
collection.  The main problem is that you lose control.  There is nothing you 
can do to recall that sort of info - as compared to if you distribute it via 
DNS where you can change it.  (Then you have to worry about DNS abuse, but 
those are your servers.)

The other problem is that it won't work well.  You can't pick 3 servers that 
will be good even if you restrict the users to being in the US.  With sites 
outside the US it goes from not good to probably horrible.

I think you should do two things.  One is to relax the "good" part and live 
with what you get from the pool.  The other is to set things up with a 
comment (and URL for the pool page) with directions about editing the country 
code so you get better than horrible.


-- 
These are my opinions.  I hate spam.