Network Time Protocol

It really does.

It configures the directory, but it also configures the NTP daemon, the network time protocol.

And I mean, I know keeping server clocks synced is generally just a good practice, but why is it treated as a critical security dependency here?

Well, that comes down to Kerberos, because alongside LDApp, that install script is also configuring a Kerberos domain controller.

It outright rejects the ticket.

It just assumes the ticket is either forged or being replayed.

So without NTP keeping those clocks in perfect synchronization, literally down to the millisecond, legitimate users would just get locked out of the network randomly.

That is wild.

Like the operating system has another layer of virtualization between it and real, real metal.

And so timing is just a joke, which makes running an NTP server, a network time server.

Basically challenging and.

I have always had a GPS hooked up to a Raspberry Pi and it is with a pulse per second output from the GPS into the Raspberry Pi.

But I don't want that much power.

I want to try and minimize the power consumption in the shop as much as I can.

And there's really no reason you can't run an NTP server on a microcontroller.

And I have looked for this over the years and there is just in the last few months since March earlier this year, uh, there was a guy whose, uh, GitHub login is something I can't pronounce.

There's a lot of available services here.

DHCP, DNS, FTP, HTPS, LDAPS, NTP, RTB, RDP.

We got a lot going on here.

SIP, SMB, SNMP, SSH, and TFTP.

Yeah.

And speaking of network services, we've got a little bit more info on the Telstra NTP debacle.

Oh, this reads like a horror story.

Doesn't it? It really

zero.

It reminds me that if you dig into it a little bit, and I heard this and I just did a little bit of light research, the NTP... is maintained by the Network Time Foundation.

But if you go to the Network Time Foundation and you scroll down all the way to the bottom, that's where they collect donations.

There's three admins and one core contributor, which means what I've heard before about the NTP code is maintained by one person.

Yeah.

Harlan's 10 is one person.

We talked about this on the show like maybe a year ago.

Yep.

Earlier variants communicated over TLS and WebSockets.

However, the newer versions are disguising their traffic as NTP, sending UDP packets to port 123 using hostnames that look like time synchronization infrastructure, which helps them pass through firewalls undetected.

Magenda powers more than 160,000 websites globally, including 14,000 of the top 1 million sites.

These platforms handle payment processing, customer data, and order fulfillment.

And then also a hug report to GR Grant, who's been doing a bunch of fixes in the library side.

And I just wanted to shout out them for their NTP library fixes, including the ability to like specify four different ones that you can fail over to in case the first one doesn't want to talk to you for some reason.

So thanks to GR Grant for that.

Okay, that's it.