[Bug 325111]

[tlhackque]

(In reply to comment #7)
> Good idea, and the "problem" is the refid is a 32-bit structure.
> 
> Its purpose is for loop detection - to make sure machine A doesn't
> believe time from machine B if machine B is getting its time from A.
> 
> I've had some chats with Prof. Mills about this and we're gently
> discussing changing the refid value for non-refclock sources to a simple
> nonce.

That's a separate issue from displaying the full server address.    I
actually have some where a subnet has the several servers, and I can't
tell them apart; the initial part of the IP address matches several
machines, and some machines have both A and AAAA records...so the names
aren't unique either.  it isn't pretty.

As far as the reference address - I thought that for IPv6, the refid was
a hash of the IPv6 address - which means it's already a nonce.  There's
some small probability of a collision (2 + n in 4 billion - 1 for IPv4
and 1 for IPv6 + the possibility that an IP address or hash turns out to
be one of the refclock tags  - e.g. .GPS., .PPS., .INIT etc -  in
binary).

Now that bits are cheaper, perhaps NTPv5 can allocate 136 bits -- 8 for
an entity id (IPv4 address, IPv6 address, and Refclock to start with)  +
a full IPv6 address at the end of the packet.  Oooh - NTPv5?  Well,
maybe not.   Just think of all the firewalls and other chaos ;-)

In any case, displaying the full server IP address would be a big help.

I don't have a strong opinion on whether the expanded format should
require a command-line switch - such as -w.  IPv6 will require any
scripts that parse the text to change anyway - and humans won't care.
But it would be a way to guarantee backward compatibility.

Anyhow, after 4 years, it would be nice to see this addressed...IPv6 IS
gathering steam.

Thanks.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/325111

Title:
  ntpq output truncates IPv6 addresses

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