[ntpwg] [dhcwg] Re: Network Time Protocol (NTP) Options for DHCPv6

[Danny Mayer]

Mark Stapp wrote:
> yes, this is another reason why the DHCP folks have generally used
> addresses in options. it just removes a dependency among the various
> clients in the system, and it doesn't usually have any significant
> drawback.
> 
> there seems to be a concern that delivering addresses via DHCP somehow
> makes them difficult to update over time. just to reiterate: it's often
> the case that the information at the DHCP server is updated. the updated
> information flows out to clients as they renew. if the lease timers were
> very long, a client who got NTP addresses and found itself having
> trouble with them all could also use the INFORMATION-REQUEST message to
> check whether the addresses were still valid, outside of the normal
> renewal timers.
> 
> -- Mark

Mark,

My biggest worry is the "set and forget" attitude of a system admin who
has more than just NTP servers to worry about. The reality is that NTP
is a long-running daemon on the client and unless something happens it
will continue to query the same client, not just for days, but for
months and even years. We can propose that the DHC client updates the
NTP server but I have yet to see anything that proposes to do that. If
the sysadmin sets up the list of NTP servers for the DHC client to use
when is he/she going to go back and check if they are still valid?

Danny