1 = NTPsec project news =
3 For historic news from NTP Classic, see devel/HISTORIC-NEWS in the
6 Not all news features are described here; see docs/ntpsec.adoc in the
9 Much of the traditional function of a news file is now better addressed
10 by browsing the comments in the revision history. This file will focus
11 on user-visible changes.
15 * Fix ntpviz's skewness and kurtosis formulas. Fix suggested by by Frank Davis.
17 * ntpd now runs on FIPS mode systems.
19 * Clock fuzzing is gone. --disable-fuzz is now standard.
21 * ntpd can now listen on a second port. Add either "nts port xxxx"
22 or "extra port xxxx" in your config file. If either is specified,
23 the NTS-KE server will tell the client to use that port. This might
24 help get around some of the blocking or filtering that ISPs are
25 doing to port 123. (Don't forget to let UDP traffic for that port
26 through your firewall.) I've been testing with port 8123.
28 * Client requests will also be sent from that port. Again, that will
29 bypass some port 123 filtering.
31 * NTPsec now builds on Linux armhf. #832
35 * Change mode6 alignment to four, which may
36 break some compatibility with classic NTP.
38 * Seccomp should now also yield invalid syscall names when dying.
40 * Make ntpq stop dropping output timestamp leading zeroes.
42 * Update documents in quite a few places.
44 * Reset some stats hourly, even when not logged into files.
46 * Add error logging, and stats for ms-sntp.
48 * Add spacing between multiple peer views in ntpq.
50 * We think we have fixed ms-sntp but we can't test it.
51 If you can test it, please let us know if it does/doesn't work.
53 * ntpd and ntpq both treat SHA-1 as an alias for SHA1
54 NIST uses SHA-1. The crypto package from OpenSSL uses SHA1.
56 * The default crypto type for ntpq is now AES.
57 RFC 8573 deprecated MD5.
59 * There are now log files with hourly statistics for NTS and
60 NTS-KE traffic: filegen ntsstats and filegen ntskestats,
62 * Update ntpsnmpd to use python built-in to get uname information. NTPsec/ntpsec#791
64 * Update license file names for REUSE compliance.
66 * Fix ntploggps issue where count_used_satellites checked before it is initialized.
68 * Print out OpenSSL version at configure time.
70 * Enable debug symbols by default, with only an option to disable.
72 * Add support for ecdhcurves list.
74 * Fix build on platforms where `-fstack-protector` relies on libssp, like musl.
76 * Fix ntpdig crash when using 2.ntp.pool.org with a host without IPv6 support.
78 * Do not install libaes_siv test anymore.
80 * Add update option to buildprep.
82 * ntpdig shows packet delay in JSON output.
86 Fix a crash in ntpd if NTS is disabled and an NTS-enabled client request (mode
87 3) is received. (CVE-2023-4012)
91 * Restore/cleanup NTPv1 support
93 ** ntpq sysstats now shows NTPv1 traffic.
95 ** NTPv1 counter added to sysstats log file.
97 * NTS supports partial wildcards, for example `*.example.com`
99 * Work on documentation, ntpdate, ntpheat, ntploggpg, ntpq's sysstats, ntpviz,
102 * NTP auth no longer breaks on NULs.
104 * The NTS server now saves 10 days worth of cookie keys. This will allow clients
105 that only poll once a day to use NTS without using NTS-KE to keep cookies up to
108 * rawstats now logs dropped packets and their BOGON code
110 ** Only one per request to avoid DoSing the log file
112 ** This lets you see packets that take too long.
114 * Add 4 or 6 to DNS/NTS RefID tags to indicate that the
115 DNS or NTS-KE has succeeded but NTP has not worked yet.
119 ** Respect `--notests` configure option for build
121 ** Add `--enable-attic` (default off)
123 ** Restore Python 2.6 support
125 ** Restore LibreSSL support
127 ** Add support for OpenSSL 3.0
129 * Fix hash validation in ntpleapfetch again.
131 * FreeBSD now gets nanosecond resolution on receive time stamps.
133 == 2021-06-06: 1.2.1 ==
135 Update ntpkeygen/keygone to properly filter `#` characters. (CVE-2021-22212)
137 Add dextral peers mode in ntpq and ntpmon.
139 Drop NTPv1 as the support was not RFC compliant, maybe v2 except mode 6 next.
141 Fix argument P for ntpd parsing fixed and ntpdate improvements.
143 Fix crash for raw ntpq readvar.
145 Add processor usage to NTS-KE logging except on NetBSD.
147 Remove --build-epoch and replace it with arbitrary --build-desc text.
148 Passing '--build-desc=$(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%Sz)' restores the previous
149 default extended version.
151 The build epoch has been replaced with a hardcoded timestamp which will be
152 manually updated every nine years or so (approx 512w). This makes the
153 binaries reproducible by default.
155 Compare versions of ntp.ntpc and libntpc printing a warning if
156 mismatched. Fix libntpc install path if using it.
158 Reduce maxclocks default to 5 to reduce the NTP pool load.
160 Print LIBDIR during ./waf configure.
162 Add documentation, new GPG key, and other cleanups.
164 == 2020-10-06: 1.2.0 ==
166 The minor version bump is to indicate official official support of
167 RFC8915 "Network Time Security for the Network Time Protocol" which
168 was released 2020-09-30.
170 On this day in 1783, Benjamin Hanks received a patent for a
171 self-winding clock he planned to install in the Old Dutch Church in
172 Kingston, New York, supposedly making it the first public clock in
173 what became the New York City metropolitan area.
175 NTS-KE client now defaults to port 4460.
177 NTS-KE server now listens on port 4460.
178 (Listening on port 123 has been removed.)
180 The shebang of installed Python scripts can now be customized with:
181 waf configure --pyshebang="..."
182 This has multiple uses, but one example is for distros (like CentOS 8 or
183 Ubuntu 20.04) with no `python` executable:
184 python3 waf configure --pyshebang="/usr/bin/env python3"
186 NTP clients now use a shared library with Python instead of an extension.
188 Add flakiness option to ntpq and fixed limit=1 in mrulist.
190 Fixed a minor formatting issue in rate page.
192 == 2020-05-23: 1.1.9 ==
194 Today is Blursday, Maprilay 84th, 2020, of the COVID-19 panic.
196 Correctly parse ntpq :config output on Python 3 and check return MACs.
198 Add AES and other algorithm support to ntpq and ntpdig, from OpenSSL.
200 Remove support for NetInfo. NetInfo was last supported in Mac OS X v10.4
202 The configure step now supports --disable-nts for running
203 on systems with older versions of OpenSSL.
205 The default restrictions now start with noquery and limited
206 to reduce the opportunities for being used for DDoS-ing.
208 The draft RFC for NTS has dropped support for TLSv1.2
209 We now need OpenSSL with TLSv1.3 support (version 1.1.1 or newer).
210 The config keyword +tlsciphers+ has been removed.
212 Additional filtering and sort options have been added to ntpq/mrulist
213 Details are in the man page.
215 Rate limiting has been cleaned up.
216 With "restrict limited", traffic is now limited to
217 an average of 1 packet per second with bursts of 20.
218 (needs doc and maybe config)
220 SIGHUP and hourly checks have been unified. Both now
221 check for a new log file
222 check for a new certificate file
223 check for a new leap file
224 SIGHUP also restarts all pending DNS and NTS probes.
226 NTS client now requires ALPN on TLSv1.3.
228 asciidoctor (1.5.8 or newer) is now supported and is the preferred AsciiDoc
229 processor. asciidoc is still supported, but the minimum supported version
230 has been raised from 8.6.0 to 8.6.8. asciidoc3 (3.0.2 or newer) is also
233 HTML docs are now built by default if an AsciiDoc processor is installed. If
234 you do not want HTML docs, configure with --disable-doc. (Note: Man pages
235 are controlled by a separate --disable-manpage.)
237 Analysis shows that CVE-2020-11868, affecting NTP Classic,
238 cannot affect us, as the peer mode involved has been removed.
240 == 2019-11-17: 1.1.8 ==
242 Fix bug in NTS-KE client so that NTP server names work.
244 Fix/tweak several NTS logging messages.
246 == 2019-09-02: 1.1.7 ==
248 The numeric literal argument of the 'time1' fudge option on a clock
249 can now have one or more letter suffixes that compensate for era
250 rollover in a GPS device. Each "g" adds the number of seconds in a
251 1024-week (10-bit) GPS era. Each "G" adds the number of seconds in a
252 8192-week (13-bit) GPS era.
254 The neoclock4x driver has been removed, due to the hardware and the
255 vendor having utterly vanished from the face of the earth.
257 The NTS ALPN negotiation sequence has been modified for improved
258 interoperability with other NTS implementations.
260 NTS key rotation now happens every 24 hours. It used to rotate
261 every hour to enable testing of recovery from stale cookies.
263 On this day in 1945, some important paperwork was signed by
264 General MacArthur aboard the USS Missouri.
266 == 2019-07-10: 1.1.6 ==
268 Fixes to code quality checks.
270 Fixes to NTS server list.
274 On this day in 1913, in Death Valley, the temperature was 56.7°C,
275 officially world's highest recorded temperature.
277 == 2019-06-30: 1.1.5 ==
279 Add ALPN for the NTS server, as required by the NTP draft.
281 Revert some ntpq behavior.
283 On this day in 1972 the first leap second is added to the UTC time system.
285 == 2019-06-21: 1.1.4 ==
287 NTS is now implemented. See .../devel/nts.adoc
288 https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-ntp-using-nts-for-ntp
290 We thank Cisco for sponsoring the NTS development.
292 Lots of fixes and cleanups to PPS, both implementation and documentation.
294 Pthread support is now required. --disable-dns-lookup is gone.
296 NIST lockclock mode is now a runtime option set by the (previously unused)
297 flag1 mode bit of the local-clock driver.
299 As always, lots of minor fixups and cleanups everywhere. See the git log.
301 Today marks the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.
303 == 2019-01-13: 1.1.3 ==
305 Security fixes for bugs inherited from NTP Classic:
307 * CVE-2019-6443: OOB read in ctl_getitem() in ntp_control.c (GitLab #507)
308 * CVE-2019-6444: OOB read in process_control() in ntp_control.c (GitLab #508)
309 * CVE-2019-6445: Remotely triggerable crash in ntp_control.c (GitLab #509)
310 * CVE-2019-6442: Authenticated OOB write in ntp_parser.y (GitLab #510)
312 Lots of typo fixes, documentation cleanups, test targets.
314 In memory of Arland D. Williams Jr.
316 == 2018-08-28: 1.1.2 ==
318 Use data minimization on client requests
319 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-ntp-data-minimization/
321 Support AES-128-CMAC for authentication
322 https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8573
324 == 2018-06-11: 1.1.1 ==
326 Log timestamps now include the year. This is useful when
327 investigating bugs involving time-setting and -g.
329 Many internal cleanups to clear the way for upcoming major features.
330 They should generally not be user visible. Refer to the git-log if
333 == 2018-03-14: 1.1.0 ==
335 RIP Stephen William Hawking, CH CBE FRS FRSA. 1942-01-08 - 2018-03-14
336 You gave us a Brief History of Time. We will just count it.
338 Enough user visible changes have been made that this is the 1.1.0 release
341 The code size is now 55KLOC in C, 15KLOC in Python.
343 Digests longer then 20 bytes will be truncated.
345 We have merged NTP Classic's fix for CVE-2018-7182.
347 The following NTP Classic CVEs announced in February 2018 do not affect NTPsec:
349 * CVE-2016-1549: Sybil vulnerability: ephemeral association attack
350 * CVE-2018-7170: Multiple authenticated ephemeral associations
351 * CVE-2018-7184: Interleaved symmetric mode cannot recover from bad state
352 * CVE-2018-7185: Unauthenticated packet can reset authenticated interleaved association
353 * CVE-2018-7183: ntpq:decodearr() can write beyond its buffer limit
355 We have dropped support for Broadcast servers. We had kept it for
356 older desktop operating systems listening on the local network
357 broadcast domain, a use case that is no longer employed in sane
358 environments, and no longer necessary for modern desktop OSs.
360 It is now possible to unpeer refclocks using a type/unit specification
361 rather than a magic IP address. This was the last obligatory use of
362 magic IP addresses in the configuration grammar.
364 OpenBSD has been removed from the list of supported platforms for
365 ntpd. It will be restored if and when its clock API supports drift
366 adjustment via ntp_adjtime() or equivalent facility.
368 Mac OS X support has been dropped pending the implementation of
371 A bug that caused the rejection of 33% of packets from Amazon time
372 service has been fixed.
374 == 2017-10-10: 1.0.0 ==
376 This is the 1.0 release.
377 It has been a long road, getting from there to here.
379 The code size has been further reduced, to 55KLOC.
381 A bug inherited from Classic that could cause bad jitter from bad
382 peers to be incorrectly zeroed, producing erratic or slow startup, has
385 The dependency of local refclocks returning 4-digit years on
386 pre-synchronization to a network peer has been removed. It is
387 thus possible to run in a fully-autonomous mode using multiple
388 refclocks and no network peers.
390 ntpmon now reports units on time figures.
392 ntpq now reports a count of Mode 6 messages received under sysstats.
394 You can now turn off restriction flags with an _unrestrict_ statement
395 that takes arguments exactly like a _restrict_, except that with no
396 argument flags it removes any filter rule associated with the
397 address/mask (as opposed to creating one with unrestricted
398 access). This is expected to be useful mainly with the "ntpq :config"
401 Builds are fully reproducible; see SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH and BUILD_EPOCH.
403 == 2017-03-21: 0.9.7 ==
405 The code size has been further reduced, to 60KLOC.
407 A shell script, buildprep, has been added to the top level source directory.
408 It prepares your system for an NTPsec source build by installing all required
409 dependencies on the build host.
411 Extra digits of precision are now output in numerous places. The
412 driftfile now stores 6 digits past the decimal point instead of 3. The
413 stats files now stores 9 digits past the decimal point instead of 6 for
414 some fields. ntpq and ntpmon also report extra digits of precision in
415 multiple places. These changes may break simple parsing scripts.
417 Four contrib programs: cpu-temp-log; smartctl-temp-log, temper-temp-log,
418 and zone-temp-log; have been combined into the new program ntplogtemp.
419 The new program allows for easy logging of system temperatures and is
420 installed by default.
422 The SHM refclock no longer limits the value of SHM time by default.
423 This allows SHM to work on systems with no RTC by default.
425 The following CVEs revealed by a Mozilla penetration test and reported in
426 CERT VU#325339 have been resolved:
428 CVE-2017-6464: Denial of Service via Malformed Config
429 CVE-2017-6463: Authenticated DoS via Malicious Config Option
430 CVE-2017-6458: Potential Overflows in ctl_put() functions
431 CVE-2017-6451: Improper use of snprintf() in mx4200_send()
433 A Pentest report by Cure53 noted that a previously fixed CVE had been
434 reintroduced into the code. This was resolved, again.
436 CVE-2014-9295: Multiple stack-based buffer overflows in ntpd
438 The following CVEs, announced simultaneously, affected NTP Classic but
439 not NTPsec, because we had already removed the attack surface:
441 CVE-2017-6462: Buffer Overflow in DPTS Clock
442 CVE-2017-6455: Privileged execution of User Library code
443 CVE-2017-6452: Stack Buffer Overflow from Command Line
444 CVE-2017-6459: Data Structure terminated insufficiently
445 CVE-2017-6460: Buffer Overflow in ntpq when fetching reslist
447 We gratefully acknowledge the work of of Dr.-Ing. Mario Hederich
448 at cure53 in detecting these problems and his cooperation in resolving them.
450 == 2016-12-30: 0.9.6 ==
452 ntpkeygen has been moved from C to Python. This is not a functional
453 change, just another move to improve maintainability and reduce attack
454 surface by decreasing line count.
456 ntpdig has also been moved from C to Python. Though this is also
457 mostly a move to reduce line count, the new version does have some
458 functional changes. Obsolete options have been dropped, logging is
459 done a bit differently, and the synchronization-distance computation has
460 been brought up to date with ntpd's. Also, this version can be told to
461 collect multiple samples and use whichever has the lowest combination
462 of stratum and synchronization distance.
464 A new tool for time-service operators, ntpmon, supports real-time
465 monitoring of your NTP installation's status.
467 == 2016-11-23: 0.9.5 ==
469 This release includes a substantial refactoring of the core protocol
470 implementation. Due to unresolvable security issues, support for
471 broadcast/multicast clients has been dropped; broadcast servers are
472 still supported. Likewise, symmetric mode is now only partially
473 supported. The `peer` directive has become a synonym for `server`.
474 Servers which receive symmetric-active mode packets will immediately
475 give a symmetric-passive-mode response, but will not mobilize a new
478 All remaining Perl code in the distribution has been moved to Python.
480 The trap feature, broken in NTP Classic at the time of the NTPSec fork,
481 has been removed. So has its only known client, the ntptrap script in the
484 A new visualization tool, ntpviz, generates graphical summaries of
485 logfile data that can be helpful for identifying problems such as
486 misconfigured servers. It replaces a messy and poorly documented pile
487 of ancient Perl, awk, and S scripts; those have been removed.
489 It is now possible (and sometimes useful) to say "minpoll 0" for a
492 The ntpq tool for querying and configuring a running ntpd has been
493 moved from C to Python. About the only visible effect this has is
494 that ntpq now resizes its peers display to accommodate wide
495 terminal-emulator windows.
497 This release includes fixes for four low and medium-severity
500 CVE-2016-7434: Null pointer dereference on malformed mrulist request
501 CVE-2016-7429: Interface selection DoS
502 CVE-2016-9311: Trap crash
503 CVE-2016-9310: Mode 6 unauthenticated trap information disclosure and DDoS vector
505 Note that the "fixes" for CVE-2016-9310/9311 consist of complete
506 removal of the broken trap feature. This removal occurred post-0.9.4
507 but prior to the discovery of these issues.
509 Further, an additional low-severity issue impacting 0.9.0 through
510 0.9.3 has come to our attention:
512 CVE-2016-7433: Reboot sync calculation problem
514 This issue was already addressed in 0.9.4 but not treated as a
517 The following NTP Classic CVEs do not impact NTPsec: CVE-2016-7427,
518 CVE-2016-7428, CVE-2016-9312, CVE-2016-7431. We reject CVE-2016-7426,
519 as it describes known and intended behavior which is a necessary
520 logical consequence of rate-limiting.
522 For more information on these security issues, see:
523 https://lists.ntpsec.org/pipermail/devel/2016-November/002589.html
524 http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Main/SecurityNotice#November_2016_ntp_4_2_8p9_NTP_Se
526 == 2016-08-16: 0.9.4 ==
528 usestats has been added to the statistics collection to record
529 system resource usage statistics.
531 A new, simpler configuration syntax for refclocks has been
532 implemented. Configuration examples in the new syntax have been added
535 Refclocks are now designated by name, not number. A list is available
536 from "./waf configure --list".
538 The rarely-used saveconfig feature in ntpd, and various associated
539 configuration directives, have been removed for security reasons. The
540 ntpd --saveconfigquit option, undocumented in NTP Classic, has
543 The ARCRON MSF refclock has been removed on the advice of last maintainer.
545 The Spectracom TSYNC PCI refclock has been removed. It required a
546 proprietary driver. As a matter of good security policy, NTPsec will
547 not trust nor attempt to support code it cannot audit.
549 The Conrad Parallel Port radio refclock has been removed. It required
550 a third-party parallel-port driver for Linux that no longer exists.
552 Both Hopf refclocks have been removed. The 6039 driver required a
553 kernel driver that no longer exists; the 6021 driver duplicated
554 support in the generic driver.
556 The Austron refclock has been removed, on the grounds that it was
557 EOLed more than 20 years ago and there's been no aftermarket activity
558 or web chatter around it for a decade.
560 The audio-path drivers (IRIG and CHU) have been removed. The class
561 of hardware required to support them has gone essentially extinct due
562 to cheap DSP. The complexity/maintenance overhead of this code
563 was high enough to motivate dropping them.
565 This release contains a fix for one vulnerability inherited from
568 [Bug 3044] (CVE-2016-4954) Processing spoofed server packets
570 https://lists.ntpsec.org/pipermail/devel/2016-June/001299.html provides
571 additional information on this issue.
573 It also includes the following fix cross-ported from Classic:
575 [Bug 3047] refclock_jjy does not work with C-DEX JST2000
577 == 2016-05-17: 0.9.3 ==
579 The long-deprecated Autokey feature has been removed.
581 This release contains fixes for three vulnerabilities inherited from
584 [Bug 3020] (CVE-2016-1551) Refclock impersonation vulnerability
585 (Credit: Matt Street et. al. of Cisco ASIG)
586 [Bug 3008] (CVE-2016-2519) ctl_getitem() return value not always checked
587 (Credit: Yihan Lian of the Qihoo 360 cloud security team)
588 [Bug 2978] (CVE-2016-1548) Interleave-pivot
589 (Credit: Miroslav Lichvar of RedHat and Jonathan Gardner of Cisco ASIG)
591 The following non-security fixes have been
592 forward-ported from Classic:
594 [Bug 2772] adj_systime overflows tv_usec
595 [Bug 2814] msyslog deadlock when signaled.
596 [Bug 2829] Look at pipe_fds in ntpd.c
597 [Bug 2887] fudge stratum only accepts values [0..16].
598 [Bug 2958] ntpq: fatal error messages need a final newline.
599 [Bug 2965] Local clock didn't work since 4.2.8p4.
600 [Bug 2969] Segfault from ntpq/mrulist when looking at server with lots of clients
602 We regard the following NTP Classic bug -
604 [Bug 3012] (CVE-2016-1549) Sybil vulnerability: ephemeral association attack
605 (Credit: Matthew van Gundy of Cisco ASIG)
607 as a duplicate of CVE-2015-7974 (see 0.9.1 release
608 notes) and it is WONTFIX for the time being: it is
609 correct-but-unfortunate behavior consequent to confusing and
610 inflexible semantics of ntp.conf's access control language, and we
611 will address it with a future redesign effort. NTP Classic has
612 partially addressed this pair of issues by extending the syntax of
613 ntp.keys to support IP ACLing. We are not currently aware of any
614 demand for this feature among NTPsec users and have no plans to
615 implement it; if you have a need for it, please file a bug at
616 https://gitlab.com/groups/NTPsec/issues to let us know you're out
619 The remainder of the security issues patched in NTP Classic 4.2.8p7
620 either are not believed to impact NTPsec or were already fixed in a
623 == 2016-03-15: 0.9.2 ==
627 * can now cross-compile
628 * many documentation fixes
629 * Coverity is even more strict
630 * remove WWV, transmitter protocol changed, nobody builds receivers
631 * remove updwtmpx stuff, no longer useful
633 == 2016-01-25: 0.9.1 ==
635 Point release for security. Fixes:
637 * CVE-2015-7973: Replay attack on authenticated broadcast mode
639 * CVE-2015-7975: nextvar() missing length check (Jonathan Gardner)
640 * CVE-2015-7979: Off-path Denial of Service (DoS) attack on
641 authenticated broadcast and other preemptable modes (Aanchal
643 * CVE-2015-8138: Zero Origin Timestamp Bypass (Matthew van Gundy &
645 * CVE-2015-8139: Origin Leak: ntpq and ntpdc Disclose Origin Timestamp
646 to Unauthenticated Clients (Matthew van Gundy)
647 * CVE-2015-8158: Potential Infinite Loop in ntpq (Jonathan Gardner)
648 * CVE-2016-1550: Timing attack on MAC verification (Daniel Franke)
649 * Missing length checks in decodearr() and outputarr() (Daniel Franke)
651 Two additional security issues have been reported to us for which we
652 are not implementing code changes, but the user should be aware of
655 The first (CVE-2015-8140) pertains to NTP's dynamic reconfiguration
656 feature, which permits on-the-fly modification of NTP's configuration
657 via ntpq. This feature is rarely used, typically disabled, and can
658 only be enabled when authentication is configured. ntpd has no means
659 of detecting that a request to change its configuration is a replay of
660 an old packet. Therefore, if an administrator sets ntpd to
661 configuration A and then to configuration B, an attacker who captures
662 the packets commanding these changes can replay the first one and
663 restore ntpd's state to configuration A. This is only a concern when
664 the configuration commands are sent over an untrusted
665 network. Configuration changes made via localhost are not susceptible.
667 This is an inherent design flaw in NTP cryptography and in the remote
668 reconfiguration protocol, and can be fixed only with a considerable
669 reworking and by changing the protocol in a way that is neither
670 forward nor backward compatible. This cryptographic rework is on the
671 horizon in the form of Network Time Security (currently a draft in the
672 IETF network time working group). Given that this vulnerability
673 impacts few if any real users, we have chosen to defer fixing it until
674 we have tools more suitable to the task. For the mean time, if you
675 rely on NTP's reconfiguration support, we recommend either restricting
676 its use to localhost or trusted networks, or tunneling through SSH or
677 a VPN. The 'nomodify' option to the 'restrict' directive may be used
678 to enforce this policy.
680 The second (CVE-2015-7974) pertains to the fact that when multiple
681 trusted keys are configured, no mechanism exists to associate
682 particular keys with particular peers or assign particular privileges.
683 This is not a bug, per se, but rather a lack of expressiveness in
684 NTP's configuration language. We intend to address in a future release
685 as part of a larger redesign aimed at giving clearer semantics to the
686 configuration language and making it easier to write safe
689 Note that NTPsec is not impacted by CVE-2015-7976, CVE-2015-7977, or
690 CVE-2015-7978. CVE-2015-7977 and CVE-2015-7978 both pertain to mode 7
691 packets, support for which was completely removed before NTPsec's
692 first beta. CVE-2015-7976 is a feature request to restrict the format
693 of filenames used in saveconfig commands. Saveconfig support is
694 disabled at compile time in NTPsec and will not be re-enabled without
695 much more extensive hardening.
699 Coverity found a slow memory leak in the asynchronous-DNS code.
701 == 2015-11-16: 0.9.0 ==
703 Initial NTPsec beta release.
705 * Canonical forge for git clones and issue tracking is
706 https://gitlab.com/NTPsec/ntpsec
708 * The documentation has been extensively updated and revised. One
709 important change is that manual pages are now generated from the
710 same masters as this web documentation, so the two will no longer
711 drift out of synchronization.
713 * Internally, there is more consistent use of nanosecond precision.
714 A visible effect of this is that time stepping with sufficiently
715 high-precision time sources could be accurate down to nanoseconds
716 rather than microseconds; this might actually matter for GPSDOs
717 and high-quality radio clocks.
719 * The deprecated 'ntpdc' utility, long since replaced by 'ntpq', has
722 * The 'ntpsnmpd' daemon, incomplete and not conformant with RFC 5907,
725 * A number of obsolete refclocks have been removed.
727 * The 'sntp' program has been renamed 'ntpdig' in order to make
728 NTP installables have a uniform name prefix and take up less
729 namespace. Also, ntp-keygen is now 'ntpkeygen', ntp-wait
730 is 'ntpwait', and update-leap is now 'ntpleapfetch'.
732 * A new utility, 'ntpfrob', collects several small diagnostic functions
733 for reading and tweaking the local clock hardware, including reading
734 the clock tick rate, precision, and jitter. Part of it formerly
735 traveled as 'tickadj'.
737 * The deprecated 'ntpdate' program has been replaced with a shell
738 wrapper around 'ntpdig'.
740 * Log timestamps look a little different; they are now in ISO 8601 format.
742 * Autokey is not supported in this release.
744 == Bugfixes either ported from NTP Classic or fixed by NTPsec changes ==
746 These reflect fixes to NTP Classic between the 2015-06-06 fork point and
747 the 0.9.0 beta release.
749 * [Bug 2625] Deprecate flag1 in local refclock. Hal Murray, Harlan Stenn.
750 * [Bug 2778] Implement "apeers" ntpq command to include associd.
751 * [Bug 2823] ntpsweep with recursive peers option doesn't work. H.Stenn.
752 * [Bug 2836] DCF77 patches from Frank Kardel to make decoding more
753 robust, and require 2 consecutive timestamps to be consistent.
754 * [Bug 2845] Harden memory allocation in ntpd; implement and
755 use 'eallocarray(...)' where appropriate.
756 * [Bug 2846] Report 'unsynchronized' status during the leap second.
757 * [Bug 2849] Systems with more than one default route may never
758 synchronize. Brian Utterback. Note that this patch might need to
759 be reverted once Bug 2043 has been fixed.
760 * [Bug 2855] Implement conditional leap smear feature; includes
761 later fixes for parser support and reporting leap smear in the REFID.
762 * [Bug 2859] Improve raw DCF77 robustness decoding. Frank Kardel.
763 * [Bug 2860] ntpq ifstats sanity check is too stringent. Frank Kardel.
764 * [Bug 2866] segmentation fault at initgroups(). Harlan Stenn.
765 * [Bug 2867] ntpd with autokey active crashed by 'ntpq -crv'
766 * [Bug 2883] ntpd crashes on exit with empty driftfile. Miroslav Lichvar.
767 * [Bug 2886] Misspelling: "outlyer" should be "outlier"
768 * [Bug 2890] Ignore ENOBUFS on routing netlink socket. Konstantin Khlebnikov.
769 * [Bug 2901] Clients that receive a KoD should validate the origin
770 timestamp field (CVE-2015-7704, CVE-2015-7705)
771 * [Bug 2902] configuration directives "pidfile" and "driftfile"
772 should be local-only. (patch by Miroslav Lichvar) (CVE-2015-7703)
773 * [Bug 2909] Slow memory leak in CRYPTO_ASSOC (CVE-2015-7701)
774 * [Bug 2916] trusted key use-after-free (CVE-2015-7849)
775 * [Bug 2918] saveconfig Directory Traversal Vulnerability. (OpenVMS)
777 * [Bug 2919] ntpq atoascii() potential memory corruption (CVE-2015-7852)
778 * [Bug 2920] Invalid length data provided by a custom refclock driver
779 could cause a buffer overflow (CVE-2015-7853)
780 * [Bug 2921] Password Length Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2015-7854)
781 * [Bug 2922] decodenetnum() will ASSERT botch instead of returning
782 FAIL on some bogus values (CVE-2015-7855)
783 * [Bug 2941] NAK to the Future: Symmetric association authentication
784 bypass via crypto-NAK (CVE-2015-7871)
786 Additionally the NTPsec team is aware of the following vulnerabilities
787 impacting autokey: CVE-2015-7691, CVE-2015-7692, CVE-2015-7702. NTPsec
788 does not support building with autokey support and therefore is not
789 exposed; the vulnerable code will not be fixed, but will be removed in
792 NTPsec is not impacted by CVE-2015-7848 (mode 7 loop counter underrun)
793 because ntpdc and support for mode 7 packets have been removed.
797 For older NEWS items, see the file devel/HISTORIC-NEWS.