Will NTP work in an isolated network ( in absence of a reliable time source)

ntpntpd

I am investigatiing a typical NTP problem. The setup is as follows :-

FreeBSD is being compiled and run on Opensolaris. The config file on OpenSolaris has entry
of linux and another opensolaris machine as server and these server machines are syncing time with themselves (local clock) only. The server machines in this case have NTP running on them as well. Within a few minutes of starting the ntp daemon ,client starts syncing time with itself only and remains in that situation after that.All servers are discarded and no time syncing is done with them.

My question is , is there any fundamental problem with this setup. Will the NTP work in such isloated network that has no direct or indirect connection with reliable internet time source ?

Best Answer

I don't know anything about Linux/Unix but I can tell you that the servers should not be syncing between themselves as in serverA uses serverB as it's time server and serverB uses serverA as it's time server, as that's likely to cause problems. Pick one server to be the authoritative time server and configure the other server to sync with it.

Time is relative. The servers and clients don't know and don't care whether or not they are using the correct time as determined by some external time clock. In a closed loop system, the time is whatever you configure it to be. The servers and clients will consider that to be the correct time.

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