Telling Time → why NTP

Why do netgear routers even support the NTP protocol? What is the point of the router knowing what time it is? My linksys doesn't do this.

For logging purposes.

Because router makers don't want to put in batteries for their devices that may wear out (which is supposedly more of a headache for them). Any router that has timestamping for logs probably (that includes Linksys) gets the time via the NTP protocol or has a battery. Usually, if you didn't have to set the time when you opened your router, its getting the time via the NTP protocol from some public time server.

DynDNS people have been having problems with router makers for a very long time too. If you can dig up DynDNS threads, you'll see the problems that the rep from there brings up. Its an interesting read. As many of you know, DynDNS provides free dynamic name services, that allow translation from one of their free domain names to your randomly rotating ip address. As such, router makers have figured out "hey its a good idea if we do a hardware implementation of this...we could get better sales.." and as such, you have problems like the NTP problem that we have here.

If any of you think that there are problems with only Netgear routers, think again. Almost every router has had problems with hammering or hard-coded addresses. Pick a name, find a problem.

Would you know it's doing it? Like someone making a complaint back to you? I have a d-link 704 for 4 years now and no complaints.

If D-Link did have a issue like the Netgear routers, it would be totally transparent to the user. Only the receiving end would see it, both in slowness, and in a nice bandwidth bill.

Most users don't hook in their routers and sniff their connections to take apart whats happening at connection time with their routers. They just snap and go. Which is basically what these routers are mostly made for.

I believe that it would be possible for the recepients to make complaints, but in this case, A LOT of these modems were sold, and went off the production line with buggy firmware.

It would be just too much of a hassle and pushy thing to go around notifying everybody. Thats why Netgear made the public announcement with UofW.

So if you accidently DoSed somebody, it probably won't be your fault. It'll be the programmer who was stealing 10-cans of sodas from the soda machine each day and getting code from his psychiatrist. (joke intended)

Anyway, this is how most makers will make announcements, by distributing them out to websites as news, and through press releases.

Us D-Link users have our fair share of problems, but nothing to the extreme of turning the gateway into a DDoS client.

It's exactly like VerticalRave said -- pick a vendor, and find flaws. There's a slew of them in each and every unit. I really do not understand why no one is making a home gateway that uses picobsd (FreeBSD) or a micro version of Linux and using that. It'd work a hell of a lot better, has a great IP stack, firm NAT implementation, and would be easily upgradeable -- plus could support a CLI interface for maintenance.

I know they've made a bootable CDROM that is a Linux kernel with a web interface to configuring tons of IP and NAT-related features -- it's pretty spiffy, but I want something like that in a solid-state product, preferrably using flash and not a CDROM.

said by koitsu:

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It's exactly like VerticalRave said -- pick a vendor, and find flaws. There's a slew of them in each and every unit.

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Ever thought it was perhaps you get what you payed for?

But your right, every router has its issues.

I was told the mr814 doesnt even have logging. I have yet to see one line of a log for my router. And I've asked about it many times.

I think Linksys is using a Linux kernel with their 802.11g routers.

I have a 713P, and as I see it, it doesn't use NTP. The log stores the time using relative timestamps, then when you log in as an admin, it takes the time off your PC (javascript?) and uses that for calculating real time stamps. Whether or not it relies on this "time" for any other purpose, i have no clue.

If you have a 713P (or any other 700-series), you can try going to page syslog2.htm to see what i am talking about (type it in the URL after router address).