[ntpwg] [dhcwg] NTP option: IP address and/or FQDN

[TS Glassey]

Boy is this commentary going to make me unpopular...  but the key to this 
problem isn't technology - its the License. The real failing in this matter 
is that the NTP License allows people to mis-use NTP  and to do whatever 
they want in hard coding the addresses into the product and based on the 
existing license and the modified license created by the IETF there never 
will be anyway to control the mis-use of NTP.

By the way - as I noted, the IETF's "Any and All" uses model further creates 
this same problem by making those that misuse of the protocol still within 
their licensing models so while it's nice that the WG is worried about 
bad-NTP users or vendor's who do things that damage those of us operating 
public access NIST servers.

As to the issue at bay here - The difference between the two forms (FQDN vs 
IP Addresses programmed into devices) is that:

    1)     While the inclusion of a FQDN means that there will  be a network 
transaction with a DNS server, the overhead of that is usually never added 
into the cost of operating a NTP service. It needs to be accounted for since 
the DNS option formally adds permanent overhead at the DNS level as well.

    2)    Hard coding a IP address into anything creates a permanent 
reliance on that IP address which ***WILL*** cause the same NTP overhead as 
the FQDN model but not the DNS overhead.

So the question is here whether the NTP License will mandate these 
requirements to use NTP and if it doesn't then this is a total waste of time 
since those that violate the license will not be culpable for that.

Sorry it is what it is...

Todd Glassey

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alain Durand" <alain_durand at cable.comcast.com>
To: "Richard Gayraud (rgayraud)" <rgayraud at cisco.com>; "Danny Mayer" 
<mayer at ntp.org>; "MORAND Lionel RD-CORE-ISS" 
<lionel.morand at orange-ftgroup.com>
Cc: "DHC WG" <dhcwg at ietf.org>; "NTP Working Group" 
<ntpwg at lists.ntp.isc.org>; "Ralph Droms (rdroms)" <rdroms at cisco.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2007 10:54 AM
Subject: Re: [ntpwg] [dhcwg] NTP option: IP address and/or FQDN


>
>
>
> On 12/9/07 10:16 AM, "Richard Gayraud (rgayraud)" <rgayraud at cisco.com>
> wrote:
>
>>   => But more importantly, this does not give any guaranty that a vendor
>>      will not ship a small home router with a DHCP server inside, with an
>>      embeded NTP server address => worst case.
>
> Excuse me if I'm just adding fuel to the fire, but I still fail to see the
> difference between a vendor shipping a home router with a DHCP server that
> has an NTP option embedding a hard-coded IP address and the same vendor
> shipping a similar product with a hard-coded FQDN...
>
>   - Alain.
>
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