Re: [Ntp] NTPv5: big picture

[James Browning <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, Dec 31, 2020, at 6:54 PM Hal Murray <[e-mail]> wrote:

>
> Do we have a unifying theme?  Can you describe why we are working on NTPv5
> in
> one sentence?
>

I think the theme is herding cats and the mission statement should be
'For all the things NTP4 can't or won't do.'

My shortlist is to shift the epoch to 2020, (a)symmetric authentication
to extensions, and the timescale to TAI based not UTC based.

Others might be mandated security or (from off-list) a JSON derived
protocol.

I'd like to propose that we get rid of leap seconds in the basic protocol.
>
> Unfortunately, we have a huge installed base that works in Unix time
> and/or
> smeared time.  Can we push supporting that to extensions?  Maybe even a
> separate document.
>

An extension containing two offsets pre/post-shift, an integer second
offset from the epoch for the shift time, an expiration time, a text
scale identifier, a certificate name for who says so, and their
signature. The offsets would then be something like a signed 16/16 bit
fixed-point number.

:::snip:::

Send a packet with everything and see what returns? Autokey for its
failings had a capability negotiation as the first step IIRC.


> I'd like the answer to be authenticated.  It seems ugly to go through
> NTS-KE
> if the answer is no.  Maybe we should distribute the info via DNS where we
> can
> use DNSSEC.
>

Not sure what you mean. Perhaps have a DNS TXT record containing a
comma-separated caps list returned along with the address.


> Again, that can be a separate document.