Information: New NTP Version 4 Standard released by IETF

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) announced the release of four new Request-For-Comment (RFC) documents standardizing the Network Time Protocol in its fourth version (NTPv4).

The four RFCs have been created in a long and intensive process by the authors and members of the IETF NTP working group. One RFC replaces the NTPv3 RFC 1305, the other three documents cover the NTPv4 specific asymmetric authentication method called Autokey, a SNMP-MIB for monitoring/managing NTPv4 and a DHCPv6 option.

The new NTPv4 RFCs are available from the IETF RFC-Editor website:
RFC 5905: Network Time Protocol Version 4: Protocol and Algorithms Specification
RFC 5906: Network Time Protocol Version 4: Autokey Specification
RFC 5907: Definitions of Managed Objects for Network Time Protocol Version 4 (NTPv4)
RFC 5908: Network Time Protocol (NTP) Server Option for DHCPv6

It is expected that the reference implementation of NTP will incorporate the necessary changes to achieve compliance with the new RFCs in the near future. Meinberg will achieve compliance with the new NTPv4 standard in their next LANTIME firmware generation (V6) as soon as the new, RFC-compliant reference implementation has been released and underwent exhaustive testing.