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PRIVATE NTP/NTS SERVER AT MONITORING.ZEITGITTER.NET

Timestamping, whether with Zeitgitter or any other mechanism, requires accurate
and reliable time sources. Our NTP/NTS servers help provide this information to
the public.


ZEITGITTER?



Learn more about timestamping, Zeitgitter, the Zeitgitter network, how to use
it, and how to join it at zeitgitter.net.


ACCURATE TIME SOURCES

The most accurate form of timekeeping is by atomic clocks. However, not every
computer can be equipped with one of those bulky and expensive devices.
Therefore, the information from these clocks is transmitted using radio waves
(e.g., DCF77 in Central Europe) to inexpensive receivers. The most accurate time
information available by radio waves is through Global Navigation Satellite
Systems, colloquially termed "GPS", where high-precision time information is the
basis for geolocation.

But even these radio wave and "GPS" receivers require space and power. Networked
devices today therefore use their Internet connection to obtain pretty accurate
time information. This time is transmitted using NTP, the Network Time Protocol
and achieves sub-second accuracy, down to roughly millisecond accuracy,
depending on network conditions.


TRUSTWORTHY TIME SOURCE

NTP was designed in the mid-1980s, when the Internet essentially was a small,
friendly, and cooperative space. Therefore, relatively little thought was given
how to widely prevent malicious people from manipulating the time other
computers on the network will see.

This has only changed recently, with the advent of NTS, Network Time Security.
NTS is to NTP pretty much as HTTPS is to HTTP: You can be sure that the
information actually comes from the named server and has not been tampered with
by anyone controlling Internet equipment or wireless base stations.

Still, you have no guarantee that the other side is not lying to you about its
time. But at least you would know, who was lying to you. And you could talk to
multiple NTS servers operated by different organisations: it is unlikely that
they all will lie to you, and all in the same way.

So, with NTS, you are not completely safe from bad time information, but it
would be extremely hard and costly to fake time, such that it will not become
obvious and people can be held accountable.


PUBLIC NTS SERVER

Therefore, Trifence AG operates two free public NTS/NTP time servers in
Switzerland, at ntp.zeitgitter.net and ntp.trifence.ch. These servers can also
be used like traditional NTP servers (the protocol is upward compatible) and are
also part of the global NTP timeservers pool.


NTS USAGE

Their NTP function, providing mostly accurate but unauthenticated time, can be
used like you would any other time server.

To use their additional NTS authentication feature, NTS-capable software has an
NTS flag, which you can turn on. On the popular NTPsec or Chrony software, the
configuration is as follows:

server ntp.zeitgitter.net iburst nts
server ntp.trifence.ch    iburst nts

The nts flag at the very end of the line indicates that time will only be used
if it is properly authenticated.


TRUST? TRANSPARENCY!

We provide transparency about our timeservers, so you have a basis of whether
you want to trust our time servers. We provide statistics over the last 24 hours
and over the past week, updated multiple times a day. They are generated with
chrony-graph.

A second opinion about our timekeeping is collected by the NTP Pool:

 * The NTP Pool production monitoring system
 * The NTP Pool beta test monitoring system

Why two systems?

 1. The production monitor runs in California, over a transatlantic link, which
    sometimes loses NTP packets. That gives the impression that our time servers
    are unstable or malfunctioning, even though they just work perfectly.
 2. These californian systems also see a long delay and even small queueing
    delays on the link may accumulate, so resulting in imprecision as well.
 3. The beta test monitors run both in California and in Amsterdam, the latter
    not being affected as much by delay, jitter, and packet loss. However, it
    seems that the clocks of the beta monitors are slightly less stable. And,
    you wouldn't have guessed it, they are test systems, where anything can go
    wrong at any time. You just can't have it all.


MORE TIME SERVERS NEEDED!

NTS is a relatively young protocol, with only a small selection of NTS-capable
time servers currently available. If you are interested in reliable time, please
consider upgrading your existing NTP time server to also support NTS. It would
be great if more official timekeeping sites, universities, and companies around
the world would join, in addition to volunteers. If you want to learn more, here
are some articles with a lot of information many pointers to more resources:

 1. Transparent, Trustworthy Time with NTP and NTS: A motivation and
    introduction.
 2. Configuring an NTS-capable NTP server: What to do and why
 3. NTS and dynamic IP addresses: What to take care of when running an NTS
    server behind a dynamic IP address
 4. Debugging NTS problems: Know-how and tools for detecting and fixing strange
    behavior