From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Mar 21 09:34:26 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 79BF516A4CE for ; Sun, 21 Mar 2004 09:34:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtpout.mac.com (smtpout.mac.com [17.250.248.83]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5E17743D31 for ; Sun, 21 Mar 2004 09:34:26 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from mac.com (smtpin07-en2 [10.13.10.152]) by smtpout.mac.com (8.12.6/MantshX 2.0) with ESMTP id i2LHYQU0024902; Sun, 21 Mar 2004 09:34:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from [10.1.1.193] ([199.103.21.225]) (authenticated bits=0) by mac.com (Xserve/smtpin07/MantshX 3.0) with ESMTP id i2LHYOe5008098; Sun, 21 Mar 2004 09:34:25 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <20040321183020.A64884@tiscali.de> References: <20040321183020.A64884@tiscali.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v613) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Charles Swiger Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 12:34:20 -0500 To: sad@mailaps.org X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.613) cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: [Q] Best location of ntpd driftfile ? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 17:34:26 -0000 On Mar 21, 2004, at 1:30 PM, Stefan A. Deutscher wrote: > setting up ntpd, I find that its default location for the drift file > is /etc/ntp.drift. Right, and that is probably the best location, too. > In a way it is part of the configuration an may well belong in /etc, on > the other hand I'd rather just have files in /etc which _I_ modify. At one point (15 years ago :-), some people used to modify the contents of ntp.drift by hand. This was for machines which were not connected to a network; by keeping track of the system time drift against an external time reference source over the course of a few weeks, one could compute the right value for ntp.drift and then run ntpd to correct that drift. > I would expect the content of ntpd.drift to vary over time, ntp.drift normally converges and stabilizes after a while (a few days to a few weeks), unless the hardware clock is bad. > and somehow I would have expected it to belong in the /var part of the > hierarchy, but 'man hier' does not offer any serious evidence (should > it be > /var/db/ntp.dift)? Hmm. Well, ntpd predates the notion of /var, but you could put the drift file under there if you wanted to. I think keeping DNS zone files under /var/named makes a lot more sense than under /etc/named, for instance, but I wouldn't move ntp.drift out of /etc myself. -- -Chuck