Network Time Protocol version 4 Release Notes HP-UX 11i v3 HP Part Number: 5900-3139 Published: June 2013
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Contents 1 Product Overview.......................................................................................4 2 What is new in NTP v4 ?............................................................................5 Binaries...................................................................................................................................5 ntpd...................................................................................................................................5 ntpdc..........
1 Product Overview Network Time Protocol (NTP) is a tool designed to synchronize your computer to the Internet time servers or other sources such as a radio, a satellite receiver, or a telephone modem service. It is also used as a server for dependent clients for synchronizing time. NTP provides accuracy up to less than a millisecond on LANs and up to a few milliseconds on WANs.
2 What is new in NTP v4 ? NTP v4 includes new binaries, utilities, and command options. NTP v4 includes the following new binaries, which are available at /usr/sbin location.
ntpdc The NTP daemon control utility in NTP v4 is ntpdc, not xntpdc as in NTP v3. The ntpdc binary is used to query the ntpd daemon about its current state and to request changes in that state. The ntpdc uses NTP mode 7 packets to communicate with the NTP server. The new command line arguments are: ntpq-4: Forces DNS resolution of host- name that follows -4 in the command line to the IPv4 namespace. ntpq-6: Forces DNS resolution of host- name that follows -6 in the command line to the IPv6 namespace.
IPv6 support NTP v4 supports IPv6 in addition to the default support for the IPv4 address family. If a host name is expected, an ntpq-4 qualifier preceding the host name forces DNS resolution to the IPv4 namespace, while an ntpq-6 qualifier forces DNS resolution to the IPv6 namespace. Quicker start up of NTP daemon The behavior of the NTP daemon at start up has considerably improved.
Sometimes an NTP subnet gets isolated from all UTC sources such as local reference clocks or Internet time servers. In such cases, it might be necessary that the subnet servers and clients remain synchronized to a common timescale, not necessarily the UTC timescale. Previously, this function was provided by the local clock driver to simulate a UTC source. A server with the local clock driver is used to synchronize other hosts in the subnet directly or indirectly.
address separately. If the kod flag is used in a restriction, which does not have the limited flag, no KoD responses will result. limited: Deny time service if the packet violates the rate limits established by the discard command. Burst options Occasionally, it is necessary to send packets temporarily at intervals less than the poll interval. With the burst and iburst options of the server command, the poll program sends a burst of several packets at an interval of 2 seconds.
Autokey uses industry standard X.509 public certificates, which can be produced by commercial services, utility programs in the OpenSSL software library, and the ntp-keygen utility program in the NTP v4 software distribution. Configuring Autokey To configure Autokey in the IFF identity scheme, perform the following steps: Server setup 1. 2. Create a directory for the NTP Keys (for example, /etc/ntp). Add the following lines to ntp.conf: crypto pw serverpassword keysdir /etc/ntp 3.
3. Generate the client key /certificate using the following command: cd /etc/ntp ntp-keygen -H -p clientpassword Obtain the IFF group key from your time server operator, copy the key file to the keysdir, and create the standard symbolic link: cd /etc/ntp ln -s ntpkey_iffpar_server.3301264563 ntpkey_iffpar_server 4. 5. Restart ntpd. See the output of ntpq -p to make sure that the server is able to start.
Manycast scheme Manycast is an automatic server discovery and configuration paradigm new to NTP v4. It is intended for a client to troll the network neighborhood to find cooperating servers, validate them using cryptographic means, and evaluate their time values with respect to other servers that might be lurking in the vicinity.
3 Behavioral changes compared to NTP v3 The following are the changes in NTP v4 compared to NTP v3: • Older versions of ntpdc show only the IPv4 associations with the peers and other similar commands. • Older versions of ntpq show 0.0.0.0 for IPv6 associations with the peers and other similar commands. • There is a minor change to the reference ID field of the NTP packet header when operating with IPv6 associations.
4 Fixes and enhancements The following defects are fixed in NTP v4 release: Table 2 Defects fixed in C.4.2.6.1.0 release JAG/CR ID Description QXCR1001285684 NTPv4 Log corruption, when NTPv4 loses synchronization QXCR1001284048 NTPv4 can cause a system hang, if PHNE_42470 is not installed Table 3 Defects fixed in C.4.2.6.0.
Table 5 HP Specific changes ported to NTP v4 from XNTP 3.5 JAG/CR ID Description QXCR1000527572 /sbin/init.
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