[slurm-users] ntpd or chrony?

[Janne Blomqvist]

On 2018-01-15 04:11, Lachlan Musicman wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> As part of both Munge and SLURM, time synchronised servers are necessary.
> 
> I keep finding chrony installed and running and ntpd stopped. I turn 
> chrony off and restart/enable ntpd but every CentOS point update it 
> seems to flip.
> 
>  From what I've read ntpd is better for always on devices, and chrony's 
> been created for devices with a more intermittent access to a time 
> server/the internet.
> 
> What are people's thoughts and what are people using?

We're using chrony. One reason to prefer it is that in a recent security 
review it faired pretty well: 
https://www.coreinfrastructure.org/news/blogs/2017/09/securing-network-time

Chrony was designed to also handle the case of intermittently connected 
devices, doesn't mean it's not suitable for the simpler case of always 
online. That being said, ntpd is certainly more fully featured, and if 
you want to use some weird and not commonly used part of the NTP spec, 
chances are that ntpd supports it and chrony doesn't. Also, if you're 
running stratum-0 clocks, ntpd might have better support for such things.

-- 
Janne Blomqvist, D.Sc. (Tech.), Scientific Computing Specialist
Aalto University School of Science, PHYS & NBE
+358503841576 || janne.blomqvist at aalto.fi