This document describes the symmetric key file for the NTP Project's
ntpd program.
This document applies to version 4.2.8p2 of ntp.keys.
The name and location of the symmetric key file for ntpd can
be specified in a configuration file, by default /etc/ntp.keys.
This document describes the format of an NTP symmetric key file.
For a description of the use of this type of file, see the
"Authentication Support"
section of the
ntp.conf(5)
page.
ntpd(8)
reads its keys from a file specified using the
-k
command line option or the
keys
statement in the configuration file.
While key number 0 is fixed by the NTP standard
(as 56 zero bits)
and may not be changed,
one or more keys numbered between 1 and 65534
may be arbitrarily set in the keys file.
The key file uses the same comment conventions as the configuration file. Key entries use a fixed format of the form
keyno type key
where keyno is a positive integer (between 1 and 65534), type is the message digest algorithm, and key is the key itself.
The
key
may be given in a format
controlled by the
type
field.
The
type
MD5
is always supported.
If
ntpd
was built with the OpenSSL library
then any digest library supported by that library may be specified.
However, if compliance with FIPS 140-2 is required the
type
must be either
SHA
or
SHA1.
What follows are some key types, and corresponding formats:
MD5#
(which is the "start of comment" character).
SHASHA1RMD160Note that the keys used by the
ntpq(8)
and
ntpdc(8)
programs are checked against passwords
requested by the programs and entered by hand,
so it is generally appropriate to specify these keys in ASCII format.
This section was generated by AutoGen,
using the agtexi-cmd template and the option descriptions for the ntp.keys program.
This software is released under the NTP license, <http://ntp.org/license>.
ntp.conf(5),
ntpd(1ntpdmdoc),
ntpdate(1ntpdatemdoc),
ntpdc(1ntpdcmdoc),
sntp(1sntpmdoc)
This document was derived from FreeBSD.