NTP Server Config in Lab Environment

[ShosMeister]

I'm having an issue with the NTP configuration. First, it's my network guy that reported it so I did not see it first hand but I do trust him.

NTP is setup and running and appears to be serving time just fine down to the esxi's and vms running. Tried to install a cisco call manager and for some reason it refused to install. The research revealed that the NTP stratum was too high and installation would not continue.

As I said, this is a lab environment so there is no outside internet NTP pools that I can find so is there a way to force the stratum on the Zentyal NTP server to some number < 10 without it finding an outside source?

Thanks!!!

[ShosMeister]

No one has any ideas?

[ShosMeister]

Okay so I verified this and I'm pretty sure I know why, what I don't know is how to stop it.

I edited the ntp.conf file to fudge the stratum to 10. Verified by catting the file. Stopped and started npt service and it appeared to still be 10 although ntpq was still showing 13.

Rebooted the server (vm) and catted the ntp.conf and stratum was back to 13. So something is resetting it and from my research, I found this happens because it can't find an external server to sync to so it sets itself to a higher stratum.

First: is that correct?

Second: How do I stop it? This is a lab environment with no outside connection and we need the zentyal server to be the authoritative source so we want to force it to stratum of 10. How do we do that?

[Giblet535]

Check the comments in http://www.zachburlingame.com/2011/05/howto-configure-a-local-ntp-server-on-ubuntu-9-10/. It explains how to fudge the clock.

Difficulty: Ubuntu 9.10

NTP configuration hasn't changed much though.

[ShosMeister]

Appreciate the reply. I already know how to fudge the stratum. Issue is that after I set it to 10 in ntp.conf and restart the server, it goes back to 13.

Also, since this is a lab environment with no outside connection, will not be able to do the apt get (guessing I don't really need to though).

So the only thing left is the removal of ntpdate? Isn't that needed?

Thanks!!!

[ShosMeister]

Just to close the loop on this in case someone else searches:

Ended up creating an upstream NTP source for this box to point to and that seemed to solve it. Too bad I had to resort to that but, it's working.