ntp config - small HPUX environment

[Daniel Neeves]

I have five hpux 11i servers one of which (serverA) has access to the web to sync it's time with pool.ntp.org, question is how do I sync the time of the other four servers when serverA is not available. My idea to sync the clients time is (etc.ntp.conf):

server serverA prefer
server 127.127.1.1
fudge 127.127.1.1 stratum 10
driftfile /etc/ntp.drift

Which will sync time with serverA unless it's not available in which case the client will sync with it's own local clock, Will this work? Or does anyone have any better ideas?

[RAC_1]

Your setup seems fine. Go ahead. I do not see any issues with it.

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

This is exactly the techinque and can be extended to your primary NTP server. Just put the 4 or 5 NTP server names into the primary server's ntp.conf file and add the 127.127.1.1 entries. The primary server will not drift very much in case the Internet servers are unreachable and once the connection is reestablished, the clock will be slowly adjusted to establish a good sync. (note: 4-5 Internet servers is always recommended. The NTGP software will sort out the exact time among the multiple sources using a complex algorithm)

[Daniel Neeves]

Many thanks Guys, Bill do you mean the Primary server is to look like this :

server 0.uk.pool.ntp.org
server 1.uk.pool.ntp.org
server 2.uk.pool.ntp.org
server 127.127.1.1
fudge 127.127.1.1 stratum 10
driftfile /etc/ntp.drift

Cheers

[Patrick Wallek]

I *think* that is exactly what Bill is saying.

The one thing I would do differnet is use NTP servers from different sources on the internet. If one source has its connection go down, you've still got other available to you.

[Bill Thorsteinson]

use the peer command. This will keep all
tour servers in sync with all the other
servers they can connect to.

peer serverA prefer
peer serverB
peer serverC
peer serverD

server 127.127.1.1
fudge 127.127.1.1 stratum 10

# For use on internet connected server(s) only.
# Use your dns servers for time
server DNS1
server DNS2
server pool.ntp.org

[Daniel Neeves]

Cheers Guys, Went with what I had adding the local entry to my primary server as per Bill's comments.