Please bear with me...I've taken over the time services so am just getting a handle on this...
(in other words...newbie alert :) We have 4 time servers - 3 with a GPS-style acquisition devices that communicate via the com port - and one with just NTP running on it...all are running on Windows 2000 (apparently bitten really, really bad with wildly drifting time...long, long ago) The NTP version is [email protected] (from Meinberg) The GPS devices are all working (and connecting with hyperterm when watching the device) all 3 servers are getting time from the devices (initially - basically, I had to do the manual leap second adjustment which is what caused me to dig into this). After NTP is restarted, and it may be a couple of hours or more...the servers start picking each other as a 'better' time source. For example (from the Meinberg GUI monitor): time2 (refid=GPS) Stratum=1 time3 (refid=time2) Stratum=2 time1 (refid=time3) Stratum=3 time4 (refid=time2) Stratum=2 They all have good 'reach' values (377). I've seen the stratum's get higher and higher - to where the 4 time servers actually end up with stratum numbers in the 8,9,10,11 ranges. I found this by using the Meinberg monitoring software from my workstation (with NTP installed - same NTP version) with NTP.CONF containing 'server' statements to all 4 of those time servers...I check it a couple of times a day and they are constantly changing "who" has the best time (which is normal, from what I've been reading) but the refid is changing, also. I guess the question is: Is that normal behavior (for peering)? Or should I just reconfigure so that rather than 'peer' statements they all have 'server' statements pointing to each other (and not 'peer' statements). I hope that makes sense... Thanks! The NTP.CONF file for the 3 time servers (with GPS devices) have lines similar to below (different com ports involved): server 127.127.1.0 #allow synchronization with local clock fudge 127.127.1.0 stratum 12 refid LOCAL # connected to COM1 - use 127.127.29.1 # connected to COM2 - use 127.127.29.2 server 127.127.29.2 prefer fudge 127.127.29.2 stratum 0 #And then have the following 'peer' statements: peer time.localdomain.com prefer iburst peer time2.localdomain.com prefer iburst peer time3.localdomain.com prefer iburst Server time4.localdomain.com #(and the peer line is commented out if it is itself - i.e. if this is the ntp.conf file #from time2, then the time2 peer line is commented out) #There are additional 'server' lines to internet time sources, like: #server 69.25.27.172 #ntp1.connectiv.com server 129.6.15.29 #time-b.nist.gov server 129.6.15.28 #time-a.nist.gov #server 66.92.68.246 #time.keneli.org #server 209.51.161.238 #clock.nyc.he.net #And they are slightly different on all 3 'peer' servers (to hit different internet time sources) _______________________________________________ questions mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ntp.org/mailman/listinfo/questions
