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NTP Client clarification

Hello Experts,

One of NTP client conf file look like this and in which I found only one line is enabled (multicastclient). I'm not clear about this. What I understood (assumed) is that, using this multicast address (224.0.1.1) the NTP client will query a bunch of internet NTP servers present in this network and try to get the time information. If it works in this way, will it not hang the internet as there could be billions of NTP clients querying at regular intervals of time. Please claify me.

> cat /etc/inet/ntp.client
# ident "@(#)ntp.client 1.3 00/07/17 SMI"
#
# /etc/inet/ntp.client
#
# An example file that could be copied over to /etc/inet/ntp.conf; it
# provides a configuration for a host that passively waits for a server
# to provide NTP packets on the ntp multicast net.
#

multicastclient 224.0.1.1 <---------

Thanks,
Ashok

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bpeterse

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rdashokraj

ASKER

Thanks for your response. You mean to say that having setup like this is inefficient and will it flood our network/Internet traffic ? Please clarify. The ntp.conf file of one of the NTP client is given below:

> cat /etc/inet/ntp.conf
# NTP Configuration file for Brookhaven National Laboratory

# Use the three BNL clockserver machines as servers. Note that these
# are DNS aliases for real machines. You should always specify the
# clockserver aliases rather than the canonical names in case the clockservers
# should move to another machine at some future date.

# Server Internal Clock
# Take out the comment for the server of this file
#server 127.127.1.0 prefer # local clock driver
#fudge 127.127.12.0 stratum 7

#
# Setup outside Stratum 1 servers. NTP will use these first
#server tick.ucla.edu
#server ntp.nasa.gov
#server time.nist.gov
#server tick.usnogps.navy.mil

# Setup inside Stratum 2 servers. These servers are used when all Stratum 1
# servers are down
server clock1.cypress.com

# Setup outside Stratum 3 servers. These servers are used when all Stratum 1
# servers are down
#
server clock3.cypress.com
server clock2.cypress.com

# Configure to be a multicast client
multicastclient 224.0.1.1

bpeterse

If you're asking whether or not to use multicast - then no - don't use it as it is inefficient and very 'chatty' for your bandwidth.

This is how our server - on the dmz - is configured (ntp.conf):

server 10.0.1.1
server 127.127.1.0
fudge 127.127.1.0 stratum 0

broadcast 224.0.1.1 ttl 4

enable auth monitor
driftfile /var/ntp/ntp.drift
statsdir /var/ntp/ntpstats/
filegen peerstats file peerstats type day enable
filegen loopstats file loopstats type day enable
filegen clockstats file clockstats type day enable

Tintin

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicast for more information on multicast.

As bpeterse says, most people specify 1 or more NTP servers specifically.

rdashokraj

ASKER

Tintin, just to confirm: Shall I recommend my management to disable the 'multicast' option in all the NTP Servers and Clients (execpt the Master server) and have only the server option enabled which points to the master time server in our WAN?

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Tintin

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rdashokraj

ASKER

Thanks a lot for your explanation !!