Huh, I guess it's best to think of each site's NIST NTP servers as 'load-balancers' in front of a single 'application server'.
Fun fact: Per [0], if you provide enough servers, the NTP client can detect a "falseticker" that is not providing accurate time. The number of NTP servers required is `2n+1` where `n≥1`.
Of course, that requires each NTP server use its own time source.
So, note for me: If I want NTP redundancy and I'm using NIST's servers, pick one NTP server from each of NTP's three sites.
-10ms, no redundant clocks, and they're leaving most of the servers up with that amount of skew. Wow. I am astonished that NIST does not have multiple clocks over multiple distributed sites with robust ability to detect and bypass individual failures.
> I am astonished that NIST does not have multiple clocks over multiple distributed sites with robust ability to detect and bypass individual failures.
They may not operate redundant clocks at a single site, but ITS redundancy posture[1] doesn't look bad at all:
>> Servers at the Boulder and WWV/Ft. Collins campuses are independent and unaffected.
They do have multiple clocks and sites. The primary clock is in Boulder. Only the Maryland time servers are affected, the Colorado ones should be fine. They mention switching to another atomic clock, but that probably has to be setup.
The email explains why they haven't shut down, cause haven't hit the threshold. And talks about maybe shutting them down manually.
I wonder if it’s a response to this https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-accuses-us-cyber-b...
Good to know they have multiple backup clocks across the continental US.
Huh, I guess it's best to think of each site's NIST NTP servers as 'load-balancers' in front of a single 'application server'.
Fun fact: Per [0], if you provide enough servers, the NTP client can detect a "falseticker" that is not providing accurate time. The number of NTP servers required is `2n+1` where `n≥1`.
Of course, that requires each NTP server use its own time source.
So, note for me: If I want NTP redundancy and I'm using NIST's servers, pick one NTP server from each of NTP's three sites.
[0]: https://support.ntp.org/Support/SelectingOffsiteNTPServers#U...
-10ms, no redundant clocks, and they're leaving most of the servers up with that amount of skew. Wow. I am astonished that NIST does not have multiple clocks over multiple distributed sites with robust ability to detect and bypass individual failures.
> I am astonished that NIST does not have multiple clocks over multiple distributed sites with robust ability to detect and bypass individual failures.
They may not operate redundant clocks at a single site, but ITS redundancy posture[1] doesn't look bad at all:
>> Servers at the Boulder and WWV/Ft. Collins campuses are independent and unaffected.
[1] https://tf.nist.gov/tf-cgi/servers.cgi
They do have multiple clocks and sites. The primary clock is in Boulder. Only the Maryland time servers are affected, the Colorado ones should be fine. They mention switching to another atomic clock, but that probably has to be setup.
The email explains why they haven't shut down, cause haven't hit the threshold. And talks about maybe shutting them down manually.