Re: What exactly does "Maximum Distance Exceded" mean?

In article <49BE52AB.1000504@xxxxxxx>, mayer@xxxxxxx (Danny Mayer)
wrote:

Joe Gwinn wrote:
Status code values fixed.

At 10:47 PM -0400 3/15/09, Danny Mayer wrote:
Joseph Gwinn wrote:
Hmm. OK, but I think that we've kind of run off the rails. Let me
summarize:
1. Sun Microsystems' current behavior is not the issue, as I'm loading
old software from an old CD onto old computer hardware, hardware that
cannot support a newer version of Solaris than v9.
One of these old Solaris boxes did work with NTPv3 running an even
older
> version of Solaris, with no 9514 codes, deepening the mystery.
>

The trouble here is that those codes are *very likely* likely to have
changed between V3 and V4 since there was a large rewrite between the
two. That's why looking at the source code is necessary to get you the
help you need.

As discussed in my other reply, mutating codes is a blunder. It's a
good news bad news thing. The good news is that NTP has succeeded on an
unimagined scale. The bad news is that because of that scale, one must
be *very* respectful of NTP's existing base, and it can be constraining.


You won't get any argument from us. However, Dave Mills is responsible
for these codes and we haven't been able to get him to agree to not
change the test code numbers and to use new ones if he needs more and
just not reuse the old ones. He has good reasons for changing the tests
but changing the meaning of the same code is harder to fathom. His view
is that these are internal tests but when you are trying to track down a
problem with your ntp daemon, it's important to know what they mean.

These codes are *not* internal only. They are documented in RFC-1305,
Appendix B, which is also pointed to by the NTPv4 documentation
<http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/html/monopt.html>. These codes
are quite public.


> The fact that this obsolete system can most likely support NTPv4 is
worth investigation, though.

2. I think that what's happening is that I'm doing something dumb, and
I bet that there is no real difference in how NTPv3 or NTPv4 would react
to this faux pas, whatever it turns out to be. Nor is source code
research needed or requested.
3. The original question was how to interpret a specific status code,
9514. I read the explanation in the documentation, but became no wiser
for it. Thus my question.

Which is why you need to look at the source code. Documentation isn't
always clear or definitive but the source code will tell you.

It simply cannot be required to read source code to get the definitions
of status codes, even if the documentation has to give one definition
per NTP version. NTP is used on hundreds of millions of computers. Are
we expecting that every time someone gets an unexpected code they either
have to read the source code, or pay someone to read it for them? I'm
sorry, but that cannot work.


I agree, but I'm not the person you need to persuade. In V4 the flash
codes are listed in libntp/statestr.c. I don't know about V3.

While given the pointer I may well look, the fundamental issue remains.


You may also be amused by this sync code:
{ CTL_SST_TS_WRSTWTCH, "sync_wristwatch" },

Heh. Hairy wrist required.

Joe Gwinn
.

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