Time Problem in 5.0

[Bill Moran]

Dan Nelson wrote:
> In the last episode (Apr 25), Bill Moran said:
> 
>>I'm going to repeat myself here:
>>ntpdate is depreciated.  The functionality in it is duplicated by
>>ntpd. It shouldn't even be in the 5.0 tree.  I'm considering filing a
>>pr to request that it be removed.  Opinions?
> 
> ntpdate has two nice features:
> 
> 1 - It runs in under a second.  This is useful during the startup
>     sequence, so you know all of your daemons come up with the right
>     time.  "ntpd -q" took 3 and 5 1/2 minutes to return my prompt on
>     tests on two different machines.

That's because ntpdate is an unreliable hack of the ntp system.  Read
some of these docs on reliable time-keeping any you'll understand why
ntpd takes so long, even with -q:
http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~ntp/ntpfaq/NTP-a-faq.htm
The use of a single NTP server is never considered a good idea.

> 2 - It accepts IP numbers on the commandline, so you don't need a
>     config file to just get your time synched while you're setting a
>     machine up or just want to test.

That's a nice feature, I'll warrant.  But it's hardly a show-stopper.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com