Recent NTP pool traffic increase

Fri Dec 23 04:31:08 UTC 2016

Sorry if I wasn't being clear.

What I mostly meant is that there should be a regulated, industry-wide 
effort in order to provide a stable and active pool program. With the 
current models, a protocol that is widely used by commercial devices is 
being supported by the time and effort of volunteers around the world. 
Initiative like the NTF and the Pool program are awesome, but I believe 
that NTP is something that shouldn't relegated to the wayside as the 
internet continues to evolve. Reading a bit more, NTF could be 
"upgraded" into a more official role too.

I'm just a bit puzzled that this entire mixup actually happened with the 
modern internet.

Laurent

On 12/22/2016 08:05 PM, Harlan Stenn wrote:
> On 12/22/16 4:11 PM, Ask Bjørn Hansen wrote:
>>> On Dec 20, 2016, at 8:02 PM, Harlan Stenn<stenn at nwtime.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 12/20/16 7:27 PM, Laurent Dumont wrote: To be honest, the fact
>>>> that NTP is still something managed by volunteers and not a
>>>> regulated entity (a bit like DNS) is mind boggling.
>>> Time *is* managed by regulated entities - the National Time Labs.
>> That was pretty clearly not what Laurent was talking about.
> Not all that clearly, at least to me.
>
>>> And Network Time Foundation's NTP Project (the reference
>>> implementation for NTP) could do lots more if we had a useful
>>> budget.
>>>
>>> Folks pay money for DNS registrations.  There's no revenue stream
>>> around "time".
>>>
>>> Help us get enough support to NTF, and we'll have the staff and
>>> infrastructure to do more for folks.
>> What does the NTF have to do with the NTP Pool (or the “recent NTP
>> pool traffic increase”)?
> Nothing.  But it has to do with companies putting NTP into their
> products.  When they do this with problematic configurations, it causes
> trouble.  In this case, it was trouble for the Pool project.
>
> The NTP Pool project certainly isn't the place to solve this issue.
>
>> The NTP Pool is run by volunteers, as you very well know. Both the
>> management and DNS system and the thousands of people who contribute
>> their NTP service to the system. (And we manage on a pretty scarce
>> budget).
> What's your point?
>
> This sort of misconfiguration will happen and the NTP Pool Project
> clearly isn't the place to solve this problem overall.  It *is*
> something NTF is in a position to address.
>
> And we're almost exclusively an overstretched volunteer organization,
> too, as you very well know.
>
> Do we have different goals around this issue?
>