FAQ.txt

= NTPsec Frequently Asked Questions =

More FAQs will be added here as we discover that they are FAQs.

== Why NTPsec? ==

NTPsec was forked from NTP Classic 4.3.34 in early 2015 after many
installations of NTP Classic were repeatedly exploited as amplifiers
in distributed denial-of-service attacks.

This failure didn't happen at random. NTP Classic has long neglected
open-source best practices, and stagnated as a result. The code needed
to be fixed, and the development practice around it reformed.

//You can read more about link:history.html[How NTPsec came to be].

== Why should we believe your security/reliability claims? ==

The NTPsec team combines the expertise of senior developers from
NTP Classic, the http://www.catb.org/gpsd[GPSD project], and the
https://www.rtems.org/[RTEMS Project].

GPSD has an exceptional record of reliability and security over a
decade of literally billions of deployments in mobile and embedded
systems ranging from smartphones through life-critical navigation
systems to military and aerospace applications.  You rely on it every
time you use Google Maps.

RTEMS is the real-time operating system used in deep-space missions.
It is ultra-reliable because it has to be; there's no on-site
tech support a million miles from Earth.

Applying that GPSD and RTEMS experience to NTP combines the best in
modern high-reliability software engineering with the proven
excellence of the NTP Classic core algorithms.

== Will NTPsec fully interoperate with NTP Classic?  ==

NTPsec _already_ fully interoperates with NTP Classic.  They use the same
protocols and the same time adjustment algorithms.  User-visible
differences are minor, and consist mostly of obsolete code being dropped
and a few tools renamed to reduce NTPsec's footprint in global namespace.

== Why do these web pages look so 1990s? ==

Because that simple look is good for people with visual impairments,
and as a tribute to Dr. David Mills, the original architect of NTP
who is himself visually impaired.  Dr. Mills has very particular
ideas about Web visuals, and this site is carefully styled to
resemble his NTP documentation pages.

//end