Will NTP work in an isolated network ( in absence of a reliable time source)

Posted by Anand on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Anand
Published on 2010-12-30T11:00:26Z Indexed on 2010/12/30 11:56 UTC
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Hi,

I am investigatiing a typical NTP problem. The setup is as follows :-

FreeBSD is being compiled and run on Opensolaris. The config file on OpenSolaris has entry of linux and another opensolaris machine as server and these server machines are syncing time with themselves (local clock) only. The server machines in this case have NTP running on them as well. Within a few minutes of starting the ntp daemon ,client starts syncing time with itself only and remains in that situation after that.All servers are discarded and no time syncing is done with them.

My question is , is there any fundamental problem with this setup. Will the NTP work in such isloated network that has no direct or indirect connection with reliable internet time source ?

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