NTP peering

[bruce.porter]

I have a truetime NTP server on the network and I point to it with several routers. When I do a show ntp associations detail and sh ntp status, I get stratum information indicating that the truetime is at stratum 1 and the router pointing to it is at stratum 2. If I set up several peers and make one of them preferred, how will another router be selected to provide NTP info to me? Will the best stratum get selected or will the preferred peer? How do the routers know what stratum they are at? If I create an NTP master, will that peer get selected over the preferred peer in the event that lower stratum routers are not available in the peer list? thx

[vkapoor5]

Answers for your questions...

1. It always synchronizes with preferred server only, if it fails only another routers(peers) will be considered.

2. The PREFERRED peer always get selected over the best stratum server.

3. If the Router (NTP client) is polling a server of stratum N, the client will be stratum N+1 when it synched up. Otherwise, it will stay at stratum 16.

4. For final answer, I believe the answer is YES.