NTP Pool Reaches 1000 Servers, Needs More

hgerstung writes "This weekend the NTP Pool Project reached the milestone of 1000 servers in the pool. That means that in less than two years the number of servers has doubled. This is happy news, but the 'time backbone' of the Internet, provided for free by volunteers operating NTP servers, requires still more servers in order to cope with the demand. Millions of users are synchronizing their PC's system clock from the pool and a number of popular Linux distributions are using the NTP pool servers as a time source in their default ntp configuration. If you have a static IP address and your PC is always connected to the Internet, please consider joining the pool. Bandwidth is not an issue and you will barely notice the extra load on your machine."

Google

[Seumas]

This sounds like a job for Google.

Seriously. They are working to own every other bit of information. Why not "own" the method by which machines maintain time by throwing a thousand machines at it (an insignificant number compared to the 500k or more that make up their own server farm).

huh?

[adamruck]

"Bandwidth is not an issue and you will barely notice the extra load on your machine."

If that is the case, why do they need more servers?

Re:load

[seringen]

Hear hear That's consistent with what I have on my server - I never feel it and the more pool, the higher accuracy and ability to account for one-time blips of load like if hardware manufacturer hard codes all their routers to check at the very same time - certainly not impossible to imagine considering what's happened to some university NTP pools. I highly recommend joining.

Better way To Do This

[nuintari]

I think that a better method could be used to encourage diversity. They should take a page from the root DNS servers, or Akamai. Either use BGP anycast, which is what most of the root dns servers do now, which will probably never happen. Or, have a zone that network carriers should use on their local DNS servers, and by way of DNS lookups, encourage their customers to use. ntp.org has a default set of values for say time.overload.ntp.org that reflects the current pool. But I, as an ISP make my DNS servers directly answer queries for overload.ntp.org, and make entires such as:

time IN A 1.2.3.4
time IN A 1.2.3.5

where 1.2.3.4 and 1.2.3.5 are ntp servers on my local network. I don't allow people off my network to query my DNS servers for recursive queries, and the ntp.org DNS servers never tell anyone to use my name servers for this space anyways. This would mean that only my customers that use my DNS servers (about 99%) of them, would ever get answers for my time servers, and they would definitely be close.

And anyone whose network carrier doesn't bother to set this up, still gets generic answers from ntp.org. This works much better than just a big pool full of 1000 servers worldwide, even if you bother to use the country code dns regions, you still aren't always getting an ntp server anywhere near you.

Re:Better way To Do This

[Charles Dodgeson]

You are absolutely correct that if network carriers provided NTP services properly on their nets, then the pool wouldn't be necessary. If you go through Usenet archives you can read the history and discussion behind the creation of the pool. Everyone realizes that the pool is an inferior solution that we are stuck with because the network access service providers won't do their job.

The next time I've got a free two hours for self-torture, I'll call Verizon Business customer support and ask them about NTP service. (It will take that long to be transfered to someone who understands the question.)

atomic clock to PC connection?

[zogger]

Like a lot of guys here, we have an atomic self setting clock that works from radio broadcast. They are cheap now and work very well. What I am wondering is, do they make some sort of attachment clock, so it can set your computer's time that way? Like an atomic clock/usb cable connect thingee? Seems like if they did, we wouldn't need all these NTP servers, the government does the radio broadcasting and it is as accurate as it gets.

Re:huh?

[ls -la]

There really should be an "Oops" button after you mod something; I've never done this myself but I've seen at least 2 or 3 of this type of message in the last few days.

My thought is

[Photar]

Some how this should all be merged into the bittorrent client.

Re:Not so much the chips, but the timebase crystal

[Jonner]

I'm sure you're right about the low cost of the PC RTC components. However, I still don't understand why I've long been able to buy a watch for $2-$15 that keeps better time than any PC I've had.

Re:Free GPS time equipment!

[EraserMouseMan]

Only if you already have a server in the NTP pool. And even then, they only get freebies to give away every few months. Then they decide from the applicants who gets them. So your chances are probably pretty slim. The long-timers will get them first.

Re:Better way To Do This

[nuintari]

Unlike a partnership with Akamai, there's no compelling monetary reason for an ISP to offer their own NTP server. Therefore, the easiest (least costly) solution -- at the ISP end -- is probably the most likely to win. Adding a line to dhcpd.conf is probably easier than configuring BIND to issue lies.

Actually, having some local source of consistent time is pretty much a no brainer on any network that wants logs to be sane, NFS to work correctly, or has any services that require more than one server to run. I really don't mind running them, and letting my customers know. Oh, customer computers that have an accurate clock are far less likely to be obnoxious as all hell when they get email from the future, or way in the past. No, I am not kidding, time.microsoft.com is a good thing in that it got rid of one kind of very pathetic support call.

But I guess the most glaring problem to me is that, surprisingly often, the ISP's own DNS servers are slow and/or broken, and overridden. Much of Roadrunner's network is, for instance, assigned DNS servers which are so slow that when browsing the web, more time is spent on simple DNS lookups than on downloading and rendering content.

This, in turn, causes people like me to use a different DNS server on a different network. In my case, I use Level3's DNS at 4.2.2.1 because it is easy to remember and quite fast. Your suggestion ties together DNS and NTP inextricably, such that I'd also be using L3's NTP server by default, when all I really wanted was different DNS.

Wow, that is just pathetic. DNS is not hard to run, and 4.2.2.1 _is_ a slow name server that drops traffic from non level3 customers whenever it gets overloaded. I had a T1 customer who had some moron for a consultant who didn't think we _had_ our own DNS servers. Case and Point, he never asked.... checked our webpage, or used whois on our domain name. I was over there to upgrade them to a Metro Ethernet link, and nothing was working due to DNS failing. Consultants are stupid. If their DNS sucks, you can probably bet they skimped out on the NTP server budget, or didn't bother. Read on for my solution.

Remember, the whole point of this is to eliminate end-user manual NTP client configuration, and reduce network load, while offering the useful service of providing accurate time. And I can only hope that, after all of this, network-attached devices of all types will use this mechanism (whatever it is) to automatically derive time from a nearby NTP server.

You are missing the key point of my suggestion, which is that we set aside a DNS name space for anyone who wants to use it, but also leave aside the existing space for those who do not.

Some of these devices will be reconfigurable to use whatever NTP server the user wants (certainly, my Linux box is), but hopefully some simpler devices will not be (think print server, networked DVR, WiFi LCD picture frame, or other minimally-configured box).

Good lord, I hope that is never the case. I hate it when they cut config options out of end user devices. You go on and on about choice, then hope simple device don't grant you choice? Please pick a side. What if your ISP does provide a DHCP configured NTP that server that is off by 12 minutes. Do you want that lack of choice now?

If a standard method for propogating NTP server names to end-users ever does get implemented, I shouldn't have to run a local copy of BIND and my own regimine of poison, just to allow independant settings for both DNS and NTP servers.

So, hear me out, because you have missed what I have tried to infer.

Currently, ntp.org has 0.pool.ntp.org, 1.pool.ntp.org and 2.pool.ntp.org. I propose that those remain in their current form. I also propose that 3 new ones be created: 0.overload.ntp.org, 1.overload.ntp.org, and 2.overload.ntp.org. ntp.org answers queries to this zone with the exact same answers it would give for the original pool. Any ISP that wishes to send over

Re:huh?

[Mr.Ned]

"If I understand it right bandwidth isn't an issue because they can tailor how much of the pool load goes to your machine."

Yes and no. Besides the jerks who hammer servers, the bandwidth problem is one of accumulation. Even if you're in the DNS rotation for 15 minutes, you'll pick up clients, and those clients may not go away anytime soon. When I left the pool a few years ago, I didn't shut down the server right away, and found that two months after my IP was no longer in rotation, I was still getting traffic from the same hosts. ISC ntpd and OpenNTPd and the others resolve hostnames to IP addresses on startup and don't check back, so if a client has a month or two uptime, it's going to be asking you the entire time.