First stable release of ntpd-rs

Erik
Co-owner & Director of Open Source
First stable release of ntpd-rs
We're proud to announce that 5 October 2023 marked the first stable release of ntpd-rs!

In this release we focussed on offering a stable set of features (including a stable configuration format), improved metrics and creating end-user documentation.

You can find version 1.0.0 on our GitHub release page.

Why is NTP important?

ntpd-rs is a tool for synchronizing your computer's clock, implementing the NTP and NTS protocols. Time synchronization is a critical part of internet infrastructure. Accurate time is essential for tasks such as secure communication or analyzing networking issues. The NTP protocol is used by millions of devices and servers. Ntpd-rs is written in Rust, with a focus on security and stability. It includes both client and server support.

Documentation

We hope that more people will be moving to memory-safe implementations of the tools their vital processes rely on. That is why it is important that this switch be as easy as possible. The documentation of ntpd-rs is one feature that we are particularly proud of.

The documentation website includes guides on getting started, exporting metrics, installation and migration, as well as a high-level overview of the code structure.

metrics Example of metrics from the ntpd-rs daemon

Changelog

If you are curious what steps have been taken to reach this 1.0.0 milestone, check out the changelog. In the future you can find upcoming changes as well as newer releases in there as well.

Don't hesitate to report any bugs you encounter or any features that you are missing and keep an eye on that changelog to follow the progress.

Our roadmap for 2023-2024

  • Q4 2023: Experimental features, NTS pool, NTPv5
  • Q4 2023 / Q1 2024: Packaging for Linux distributions
  • Q1-Q4 2024: Packaging and industry adoption, maintenance & community work

Funders

We thank Prossimo, the creators of the NTP initiative we now build on, as well as the NLnet Foundation for subsequent contributions.

More recently, the Sovereign Tech Fund invested in Pendulum, securing ntpd-rs development and maintenance in 2023 (including this stable release), and maintenance and adoption work in 2024.

We continuously seek the involvement of interested parties and funding for future work. Reach out to pendulum@tweedegolf.com if you're interested.

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Sovereign Tech Fund will support our effort to build modern and memory-safe implementations of the Network Time Protocol (NTP) and the Precision Time Protocol (PTP).