NTP

[Ahmed ABDOU_1]

We are having a MC/SG cluster of two nodes and we need to keep the time in sync on both nodes. Could somedy guide us how to implement NTP. Is there special precautions to take when using NTP with MC/SG? Is there any documentation or procedure describing the whole process?

Thanks in advance and regards

[Wim Rombauts]

I don't know about any precautions.

I think the pest way to configure your NTP is to configure both servers as "peers" to eachother. This will make them synchronise to eachother.
For the case they loose contact, you should also configure internal synchronisation.

I suggest you use SAM to configure the "peer" synchronsiation. This will also take care of automatic starup of NTP at boot time.

The edit /etc/ntp.conf and add an entry "server 127.127.1.1". This wil enable internal synchronisation. Restart NTP after modifying ntp.conf.

Check the running NTP configuration with ntpq -p on both servers.

[Stefan Farrelly]

No special precautions needed for MC/SG.
There are 2 ways to do it.

1. sync to an external clock on the net, this is the simplest way. All you need to do is add the entry
server
to the file /etc/ntp.conf (copy the example file /etc/ntp.conf.example to /etc/ntp.conf first then edit it)
Then start the xntpd deamon by editing /etc/rc.config.d/netdaemons and changing the parameter
export XNTPD=1
then start it with; /sbin/init.d/xntpd start

2. Sync one of your MC/SG nodes to itself, then sync the other to this node, then set them up as peers. This is a bit more complicated than the above. If you cant sync to an internet clock then I can send you the config files to do this (the /etc/ntp.conf files for both nodes).

You can read more about ntp on the man page for xntpd.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

There is nothing special required to implement NTP in a MC/ServiceGuard environment. I have a 2-node cluster that obtains time from other local hosts in my network. In turn, an external time source is sampled to maintain accuracy.

A good guide to setting up NTP services can be found in chapter-7 of "Installing and Administering Internet Services":

http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90685/B2355-90685.html

Regards!

...JRF...

[Ahmed ABDOU_1]

Thanks guys, I think I got enough infos to configure NTP. keep it up.