News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Please donate to keep Network Time Protocol up – Goal 1k.

Re:Please donate to keep Network Time Protocol up – Goal 1k by iberator on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @06:52AM (#45899025)
PTP is way better than NTP, but it might be possible that reference time is somehow taken from NTP anyway.

What I Mean:

Reference .gov atomic clock (not radium one) -> NTP -> ? -> ? -> satellite control station -> gps -> PTP

Hahaha

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Please donate to keep Network Time Protocol up – Goal 1k by jhellan on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @07:11AM (#45899202)
This is true when all network delays between the synchronized device and the time reference are deterministic and accounted for in the configuration. The design of PTP assumes that this is the case. NTP, on the other hand, estimates the network delays to its time references.

Is there any reason to believe that PTP would be better in normal networks?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Please donate to keep Network Time Protocol up – Goal 1k by great_wubwub on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @06:57AM (#45899081)
PTP is more precise so it's much harder to synchronize over long distances. Even in data centers it benefits from hop-by-hop participation from the routers involved.
[ Parent | on HN ]