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I'm not sure if this is better suited for ServerFault or Stack Overflow.

The return of ntpq -p reports "reach" as an 8-bit octal value, 1-377, as in the following example:

 remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter

==============================================================================

*serv1       123.123.123.1  4 u   23  256  377    0.462    0.230   0.072

serv2        1.1.1.1        5 u  142  256  377    1.209   -0.600   0.050

serv3        1.1.1.1        5 u  134  256  377    0.452   -0.055   0.012

serv4        1.1.1.1        5 u  148  256  377    1.477    0.283   0.061

"reach" is a circular buffer of the last eight NTP transactions. For example, 11111011 (373) would mean that the last two transactions were successful, but the previous one failed. Here's a great article on how this works:
Understanding NTP Reachability Statistics

I can't see the benefit of reporting this transaction history in octal. It seems like printing it as the 8-bit binary string would more directly show the user what the statistic represents - the history of the last eight transactions. Printing it as octal seems inconvenient at best.

What am I missing?

Will
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Carl Kevinson
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1 Answers1

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  1. It's more compact than binary.
  2. It still allows you work out the number of bits that are set easily in your head. (Hex wouldn't.)
  3. It contains enough information to allow you tell exactly which operations succeeded or failed if you need that information. (A count of successes wouldn't.)
David Schwartz
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