Re: [Ntp] Antw: [EXT] Re: Robert Wilton's Discuss on draft‑ietf‑ntp‑interleaved‑modes‑05: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)

[Miroslav Lichvar <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, Jul 22, 2021 at 04:54:25PM -0700, Erik Kline wrote:
>     Using a 28-octet extension field to convey a single bit of information
>     is quite wasteful anyway.
> 
> While I certainly see this point, it occurred to me that if the extension
> where written to be a general "extra flags and fields" extension -- of
> which one was defined for "I speak interleaved" and rest reserved -- then
> another way to think about it is that the cost of this space would be
> amortized across the other future uses of the space.

There was a draft like that
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-stenn-ntp-i-do-06

But if a significant number of existing servers doesn't respond to
requests containing unknown extension fields (RFC5905 doesn't require
that), how will the client be sure whether the interleaved mode is or
is not supported? It would need to try both and see what works.

-- 
Miroslav Lichvar