# openntpd server never displays "clock now synced"



## krompo (May 4, 2010)

Hello,

I have 2 computers running inside a corporate network and want one machine to get synchronized with the other machine. Therefore one machine runs as server and the other one as client. the problem is that the client never gets synced since it always respond with: 

```
reply from 192.168.200.200: not synced, next query 637s
```

the 200.200 machine is the openntpd server - when I start it I get this:

```
listening on 192.168.200.200
ntp engine ready
```

and that is it - I never (even when I waited half an hour) get the "clock now synced" message in the server. 

What may be wrong? How should I force the server so that it starts broadcasting time information? I want the internal 200.200 server machine to act as NTP Server - is it possible without additional NTP server?

thanks for any info.

krompo


----------



## SirDice (May 4, 2010)

It will take a bit of time for the ntp server to respond to queries. It needs to be 'sure' it's own time is correct before it can handle client requests.


----------



## DutchDaemon (May 4, 2010)

From the FAQ (OpenBSD based)



> When you have ntpd(8) listening, it may happen that other machines still can't synchronize to it! A freshly started ntpd(8) daemon (for example, if you just restarted it after modifying ntpd.conf) refuses to serve time information to other clients until it adjusts its own clock to a reasonable level of stability first. When ntpd(8) considers its own time information stable, it announces it by a "clock now synced" message in /var/log/daemon. Even if the system clock is pretty accurate in the beginning, it can take up to 10 minutes to get in sync, and hours or days if the clock is not accurately set at the start.



Note (and this is _unresearched and unsubstantiated_!): if your NTP server has no way of synchronising itself against a sensor (hardware) or another NTP server (elsewhere), it may refuse to act as an 'authoritative time server' forever because it has no point of reference, no stratum information, nothing.


----------



## fronclynne (May 4, 2010)

I'm pretty sure that even under the best of circumstances, ntp can only asymptotically approach actual synchronization.

Oh, this has nothing to do with that.  Never mind.


----------



## krompo (May 5, 2010)

I was assuming that the problem will be what DutchDaemon is saying, but the problem is: I am inside a corporate network with no access to public (internet) NTP servers. What shall I do? I have no sensors and no other NTP server inside our corporate network. Can I somehow make it run?

Is there a way how could I set the NTP server so that it takes its local time and accepts it as valid sync time? What approach should be taken for my case? Can I maybe make my NTP server a valid stratum server so that it accepts its local time as valid for broadcast?

Is it actually achievable using the openntpd? Or is there another ntp server I could use which could handle this situation?

thanks for the help in advance.


----------



## DutchDaemon (May 5, 2010)

I don't know the answer to your queries, but do know that OpenNTPd is a 'small replacement' for the 'official' NTP server, ntpd. See if you get better results with that. It's in the base.


----------

