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From: net@opal.cs.tu-berlin.de (Oliver Laumann)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.time.ntp
Subject: Malfunctioning xntpd on Sun workstations.
Message-ID: <3614@kraftbus.cs.tu-berlin.de>
Date: 6 Jun 91 16:12:00 GMT
Sender: net@opal.cs.tu-berlin.de
Organization: Technical University of Berlin, Germany
Lines: 25

I have experienced a strange problem with xntp 1.4 on our local
Sun workstations (Sun-3 and Sun-4 with SunOS 4.1 and SunOS 4.1.1).

When xntpd is started, the `peers' command of xntpdc lists a dispersion
of 63.5 or 64.0 for all peers.  Then the dispersions increase by a
factor of 2 after each polling interval.  When the dispersion listed
for a peer sinks below a certain threshold, xntpd synchronizes to this
peer, i.e. its name in the `peers' listing is prefixed with `*', and all
others are prefixed with `+'.  So far everything looks fine.

Now the strange thing--  `poll' seconds after the local machine has
synchronized to a peer, all dispersions start over with a value of 63.5
or 64.0 again, and the synchronization is (therefore) lost.

This cycle repeats ad infinitum.  I have tried several peers with
different strata (from stratum 1 to stratum 3) without success.

Is this normal?  If not, where should I start looking for a problem?

By the way, tickadj reports a hz value of 100, tickdj is 5us, and
dosynctodr is off.

Regards,
--
Oliver Laumann         net@tub.cs.tu-berlin.de       net@tub.UUCP