On Feb 17, 2014, at 10:38 AM, Anthony Williams <alby.williams@verizon.com> wrote:
Blake:
Just to make sure I've got this down, listing a device as a "peer" in the ntp.conf file will create a situation where both devices are saying, "I know what time it is" and splitting the difference? Whereas when you list a device as a "server", it's using that as the authority on the correct time?
That is not exactly correct. Listing a system as peer or server means that the time from that system will be used as input to the synchronization algorithm. The selection process may discard data depending on various criteria regardless of peer/server designation. The operations implications are the requirement for your own robust group of peers > 3 and lots of servers. See • RFC 5905: Network Time Protocol Version 4: Protocol and Algorithms Specification • RFC 5906: Network Time Protocol Version 4: Autokey Specification • RFC 5907: Definitions of Managed Objects for Network Time Protocol Version 4 (NTPv4) • RFC 5908: Network Time Protocol (NTP) Server Option for DHCPv6