Launchpad insanity runs rampant

[gene heskett]

On Friday, August 12, 2011 09:38:54 AM Nils Kassube did opine:

> gene heskett wrote:
> > On Friday, August 12, 2011 04:20:45 AM Nils Kassube did opine:
> > > gene heskett wrote:
> > > > Just one comment: It says it is starting the NTP SERVER...  Here
> > > > I always thought ntpd was a client...  Picky picky. :)
> > > 
> > > Well, ntpd is client _and_ server.
> > 
> > With precious little docs on how to go about setting it up as a
> > server, the net result being that every machine on my local network
> > is pestering pool.ntp.org, whereas it should be only the router,
> > dd-wrt on a stripped x86 box, and the machines on my local net
> > should be using the router.  Is it really as simple as pointing the
> > individual machines ntpd's at the router's local address via either
> > IP or hostname in the /etc/hosts file?
> 
> There is a package "ntp-doc" which includes the file
> "/usr/share/doc/ntp-doc/html/ntpd.html". It is quite simple to change
> the ntpd behaviour, though. In /etc/ntp.conf you have several lines
> starting with "server". Those are the servers that ntpd uses. You can
> simply delete them all and insert a single line
> 
> server 192.168.1.1
> 
> where 192.168.1.1 would be the address of your router. Of course you
> might as well use the hostname.
> 
> 
> Nils

Less lookup lag if I just used the address, and the restart was happy.
That made an entry in the messages log that the file had been adjusted, but 
so far, the subdir /var/log/ntpstats is empty.  Ahh, ntpstats had a # in 
front of it, now enabled for a few hours.  Or until I remember enabling it. 
I hate to admit it, but forgetting such details is a definite possibility, 
and getting worse as the decades roll by. ;-)

I remembered there was a query util, so I looked it up, and an 'ntpq -p' 
now returns:
root at shop:/var/log/ntpstats# ntpq -p (watch word wrap)
     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  
jitter
==============================================================================
 router.coyote.d .INIT.          16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000   
0.000

Does that look normal?  Not according to the ntpq docs, the 16 is a zero & 
means not usable.  Therefore my router isn't 'serving', and I can't find a 
place in its gui to enable the broadcast at x.x.x.255.  Sigh.  I can do 
that to this machine and make it the server, so at best I would still have 
2 machines pestering pool.ntp.org, but that beats 5 or 6 when everything is 
running.  I think I can figure this out, so I'll send this now.

Thanks & Cheers Nils, gene
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