[ntpwg] Issues with the NTP draft -06

[TS Glassey]

The same quality of integrity is required in the prevention of timing loops 
so that the logs of actions documented therein are believable.

T.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Danny Mayer" <mayer at gis.net>
To: "NTP Working Group" <>
Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2007 8:44 PM
Subject: Re: [ntpwg] Issues with the NTP draft -06


> TS Glassey wrote:
>>> On 6/22/07, Danny Mayer wrote:
>>>
>>>>  The problem here is that the refid is to be used to detect timing 
>>>> loops
>>>>  but it can be any value that can do the job and should be unique for
>>>>  each server and not interface address. Thus a server should have one
>>>> and
>>>>  only one refid irrespective of whether it is using IPv4 or IPv6
>>>>  addresses. Tying it to an IP address is not really a good idea.
>>>> Tying it
>>>>  to a MAC address might be a better idea.
>>>
>>> You've got a MAC address per interface, so if you want to avoid doing
>>> anything on a per-interface basis, then using the MAC address is just
>>> as bad as an IP address.  Moreover, with many high availability
>>> services, you can "steal" IP and MAC addresses from one machine to
>>> another, and you really don't want to base anything for NTP on
>>> something that could be moved from one machine to another on a
>>> moments notice.
>>
>> OK - lets jump up to 200000 feet and quantify this model - and the
>> requirement... So then you are looking for a way to anchor the trust and
>> integrity model for the NTP Server to a physical source or site.
>
> No, the goal is to prevent timing loops. The value needs only to be
> reasonably unique. This is not an authentication scheme. Autokey is used
> for authentication.
>
> Danny
>
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