David L. Mills wrote:
Miroslav,
You might be confusing the server role with the client role. The server
has one or more upstream sources and downstream clients. The tally code
for each source is displayed by the pe command separately at the server
and the client. Each time an update is received from a source at either
the server or the client the tally codes for all sources are
redetermined. If a source is considered invalid, unreachable or the
maximum error statistic exceed the select threshold, the tally indicator
surely will be blank. If a source is marked as the system peer, it
surely is valid and reachable.
This is not the behaviour that the person who started the thread is
complaining about. He is complaining that the system peer and selected
markers are not cleared on the server when it loses reachability to the
respective upstream servers. My previous article was on the basis that
you were not challenging that aspect of his report.
In the real world, most administrators judge whether a server is
synchronized by doing ntpq peers and looking for these flags, not by
doing a client request and looking at the error statistics. In fact,
relatively few people realise that you need to use rv on the
associations to properly diagnose a failure to select.
In the case you present the server has lost all sources, but remains a
viable choice even beyond that, as long as the maximum error does not
exceed the select threshold. The user can set this to whatever value is
appropriate, with default 1.5 s. The point I emphasize is that the
server, even if it has lost all sources, remains conformant to the
formal specification. Thus, the time provider does not judge the quality
which the receiver requires; this is specified by the receiver.
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