Issues installing ntpd on Win 7

[A C]

Has anyone recently (within the last few months) tried installing the
Meinberg compiled ntpd on Win 7 successfully? I just built a new
machine, put a clean copy of Win 7 on it, tried to install ntpd and
ended up with the "unable to start" error (number 1053). The ntpd user
account was created, the service was installed, the directories were
populated, the config file was generated but it wouldn't start.

[Brian Inglis]

Which release - current stable 4.2.6p5 - or previous?
Did you check to see if the process was already running under TaskManager all users processes?
Does the ntp userid have access rights to the config, log, and stats directories?
Are you running on W7 32 or 64 bit?
What is the output from the command:
reg query HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\NTP /s

It should look something like below but perhaps with more quotes and backslashes, different paths, and shorter ImagePath (service start command line):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\NTP
Type REG_DWORD 0x10
Start REG_DWORD 0x3
ErrorControl REG_DWORD 0x1
ImagePath REG_SZ "C:\Program Files (x86)\NTP\bin\ntpd.exe" -g -M -s C:/ProgramData/NTP/etc/ -p C:/ProgramData/NTP/etc/ntp.pid -l C:/ProgramData/NTP/etc/ntp.log -f C:/ProgramData/NTP/etc/ntp.drift -c "C:/ProgramData/NTP/etc/ntp.conf"
DisplayName REG_SZ Network Time Protocol Daemon
DependOnService REG_MULTI_SZ Tcpip
WOW64 REG_DWORD 0x1
ObjectName REG_SZ .\ntp
Description REG_SZ Synchronizes the local system clock to a reference time source and (eventually) provide this time to NTP and/or SNTP clients

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\NTP\Parameters
ConfigurationFile REG_SZ C:/ProgramData/NTP/etc/ntp.conf

If all else fails, try a restart, then an uninstall, then another restart, then another install, then maybe another restart.

--
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis

[David Taylor]

Yes, I installed the Meinberg "London" distribution a few days ago,
according to the instructions here:

http://www.satsignal.eu/ntp/setup.html

No problems, and I could later update it to 4.2.7p440 - the current
"dev" release. Note that I installed /outside/ the "Program Files"
tree, so that NTP and users could have write access to the necessary files.

--
Cheers,
David
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu

[A C]

On 2014-04-28 18:37, Brian Inglis wrote:
> On 2014-04-28 17:53, A C wrote:
>> Has anyone recently (within the last few months) tried installing the
>> Meinberg compiled ntpd on Win 7 successfully? I just built a new
>> machine, put a clean copy of Win 7 on it, tried to install ntpd and
>> ended up with the "unable to start" error (number 1053). The ntpd user
>> account was created, the service was installed, the directories were
>> populated, the config file was generated but it wouldn't start.
>
> Which release - current stable 4.2.6p5 - or previous?
> Did you check to see if the process was already running under
> TaskManager all users processes?
> Does the ntp userid have access rights to the config, log, and stats
> directories?
> Are you running on W7 32 or 64 bit?

It's 64 bit Win 7. The version is the one available on Meinberg's site
(4.2.6p5). The process was not running when it attempted to start after
installation. All access controls were fine.

The registry looked the same as below, too. It just refused to start.
Restarts didn't help either. All the things one might expect to be
incorrect were fine, it simply refused to start.

[A C]

Followed the same instructions, no dice.

[David Taylor]

On 29/04/2014 05:51, A C wrote:
[]

> Followed the same instructions, no dice.

.. and what are the messages in the Windows Event Log(s)?

[A C]

Ok, so on a whim I purged it completely from the system. Installed from
scratch and the same problem occurred, no starting up of the process. I
let the installation complete without letting it try to start the
service again. Then I simply performed a "reinstall" where it detected
the existing installation and overwrote the files. It performed an
update and suddenly the service starts up on its own. I have no idea
why it did that but it took two back to back installations to fix it.

[A C]

On 2014-04-28 22:23, David Taylor wrote:
> On 29/04/2014 05:51, A C wrote:
> []
>> Followed the same instructions, no dice.
>
> .. and what are the messages in the Windows Event Log(s)?
>

The original error messages were:

A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the Network
Time Protocol Daemon service to connect.

followed by

The Network Time Protocol Daemon service failed to start due to the
following error:
The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely
fashion.

No other errors or warnings.

It's running now, the logs show synchronization and the only error is
regarding the ability to generate the .rnd file.

[David Taylor]

On 29/04/2014 06:35, A C wrote:
[]

> The original error messages were:
>
> A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the Network
> Time Protocol Daemon service to connect.
>
> followed by
>
> The Network Time Protocol Daemon service failed to start due to the
> following error:
> The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely
> fashion.
>
> No other errors or warnings.
>
> It's running now, the logs show synchronization and the only error is
> regarding the ability to generate the .rnd file.

Thanks for that - although I'm no nearer to explaining the cause of the
original problem.

In my configuration, the .RND file is created in:

C:\Tools\NTP\etc

so most likely the problem was due to accepting the defaults (i.e.
Program Files) in your first install. I recommend:

C:\Tools\NTP

rather than:

C:\Program Files\NTP

where C:\Tools is a completely open directory. The user typically needs
to edit the ntp.conf file for their own servers and logging needs.

[Martin Burnicki]

A C wrote:
> On 2014-04-28 22:23, David Taylor wrote:
>> On 29/04/2014 05:51, A C wrote:
>> []
>>> Followed the same instructions, no dice.
>>
>> .. and what are the messages in the Windows Event Log(s)?
>>
>
> The original error messages were:
>
> A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the Network
> Time Protocol Daemon service to connect.
>
> followed by
>
> The Network Time Protocol Daemon service failed to start due to the
> following error:
> The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely
> fashion.
>
> No other errors or warnings.

Typical reasons for this behavior is if

- a DLL is not found
- the password for the user "ntp" doesn't match

In such case you can try to run "ntpd -n" in a command line window. This
runs ntpd as a usual program instead of a service.

If a DLL is missing then you will get an appropriate popup error message
telling which one.

If ntpd starts in this mode (i.e. the command prompt doesn't reappear
until you press Ctrl+C) but not as service then probably the ntp user's
password doesn't match.


The 4.2.6p5 package has been built with Visual Studio 2008, and even
though current Windows versions (AFAIK) usually install the VS2008
runtime by default, we have recently had a few reports where this wasn't
the case, and the VS2008 runtime had to be installed explicitely from
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29

Please note you need the 32 bit version (x86) of the VS2008 runtime even
on a 64 bit system since the Windows port of NTP actually can't be built
as native 64 bit application.

> It's running now, the logs show synchronization and the only error is
> regarding the ability to generate the .rnd file.

The .rnd file should be located in the etc\ subdirectory below the
installation directory, and usually the installer and ntpd should have
write access there.


Martin
--
Martin Burnicki

Meinberg Funkuhren
Bad Pyrmont
Germany

[Jason Rabel]

> Ok, so on a whim I purged it completely from the system. Installed from
> scratch and the same problem occurred, no starting up of the process. I
> let the installation complete without letting it try to start the
> service again. Then I simply performed a "reinstall" where it detected
> the existing installation and overwrote the files. It performed an
> update and suddenly the service starts up on its own. I have no idea
> why it did that but it took two back to back installations to fix it.

When you said "Did an update" did you mean "windows update"?

I did a quick google search from your first post with that error and it mentioned something about .NET needing to be installed?
Maybe the windows update installed the necessary files since you said it was a fresh windows install.

[Martin Burnicki]

I bet the VS2008 runtime has been installed together with some update,
and that fixed the problem. See also my other post.

[David Taylor]

Windows .NET is not required for the Meinberg NTP port.

I think Jason meant using the "Update files" option of the Meinberg
installer.

[A C]

I installed to C:\NTP so there's something else wrong. The ntpd account
that was created has full access to that directory.

[A C]

On 2014-04-29 03:14, Martin Burnicki wrote:
> A C wrote:
>> On 2014-04-28 22:23, David Taylor wrote:
>>> On 29/04/2014 05:51, A C wrote:
>>> []
>>>> Followed the same instructions, no dice.
>>>
>>> .. and what are the messages in the Windows Event Log(s)?
>>>
>>
>> The original error messages were:
>>
>> A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the Network
>> Time Protocol Daemon service to connect.
>>
>> followed by
>>
>> The Network Time Protocol Daemon service failed to start due to the
>> following error:
>> The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely
>> fashion.
>>
>> No other errors or warnings.
>
> Typical reasons for this behavior is if
>
> - a DLL is not found
> - the password for the user "ntp" doesn't match
>
> In such case you can try to run "ntpd -n" in a command line window. This
> runs ntpd as a usual program instead of a service.
>
> If a DLL is missing then you will get an appropriate popup error message
> telling which one.

This might be it. I chose not to install the OpenSSL library (unchecked
the option in the installer) because I don't use any authentication or
other crypto for ntpd. When I reinstalled the second time, it simply
wrote the DLL into place (it said as much with a dialog box stating
something to the effect of "OpenSSL installed" but I'm fairly certain
libeay32.dll was not present when I first looked in the install
directory and showed up after the reinstall) and then it worked. So
even though SSL is optional in the installer it appears that it is very
much not optional for the daemon itself.

I may try to uninstall, purge and try again to see if that really was it.

[A C]

No, the ntpd installer performed its own "update" which simply amounted
to rewriting all the files it had just installed but apparently added
libeay32.dll to the mix which wasn't present before. windows Update had
already been done long before I tried to install ntpd.

[A C]

All of the runtimes were installed long before I tried to install ntpd
including any outstanding Microsoft patches, updates, etc. I had
installed several other programs that needed the various runtimes first.
The installation of ntpd was one of the last things I did.

I think it just came down to libeay32.dll not being installed the first
time and the reinstall/update simply put that back in on its own without
prompting.

[Martin Burnicki]

Yep.

[Martin Burnicki]

A C wrote:

> On 2014-04-29 03:14, Martin Burnicki wrote:
>> If a DLL is missing then you will get an appropriate popup error message
>> telling which one.
>
> This might be it. I chose not to install the OpenSSL library (unchecked
> the option in the installer) because I don't use any authentication or
> other crypto for ntpd.

Of course that's the reason.

When ntpd is compiled with default configuration under Windows then also
the crypto code is compiled in. Otherwise it wouldn't be possible to
enable crypto at runtime via a configuration option.

If there is some code compiled in which calls openSSL crypto functions
then the openSSL DLL needs to be available when the ntpd binary is
loaded into memory. Otherwise you get an "unresolved symbol" popup error
when you run ntpd on the command line.

A workaround for this would be to have ntpd import the openSSL functions
dynamically at runtime, but probably the next version of the Meinberg
installer will just not allow to deselect the openSSL component at
install time.

[Martin Burnicki]

AFAIK if you install the .NET runtime then the VS2008 runtime is also
installed, even if it hasn't been before. So this could well have been
the reason.

However, as seen in another branch of this thread the missing openSSL
was the reason for the problem here.

[David Taylor]

On 30/04/2014 15:02, Martin Burnicki wrote:
[]

> AFAIK if you install the .NET runtime then the VS2008 runtime is also
> installed, even if it hasn't been before. So this could well have been
> the reason.
>
> However, as seen in another branch of this thread the missing openSSL
> was the reason for the problem here.
>
>
> Martin

Thanks, Martin. I've added both of those issues to my notes for Windows
users:

http://www.satsignal.eu/ntp/setup.html

[E-Mail Sent to this address will be added to the BlackLists]

David Taylor wrote:
> A C wrote:
>> Has anyone recently (within the last few months) tried
>> installing the Meinberg compiled ntpd on Win 7 successfully?
>

> Yes, I installed the Meinberg "London" distribution a few
> days ago

Me too, in the last two weeks;
A new Win 7 64 & a Win 7 32 system.

> No problems, and I could later update it to 4.2.7p440
> - the current "dev" release.

Did that too.


--
E-Mail Sent to this address <Blac...@Anitech-Systems.com>
will be added to the BlackLists.

[David Taylor]

On 06/05/2014 04:28, Phil W Lee wrote:
[]
> It doesn't make for a real user friendly installation method, as you
> need to be an administrator to make the required changes to
> permissions within the "program Files" tree.

Just why I suggest using C:\Tools\NTP\ !

When using an SSD for the system disk, I also place frequently updated
files on a hard-disk, such as D:\Tools\NTP\. In the case of NTP, these
are the statistics files. Maybe your files are central if running
multiple NTPs within a domain.

I don't have any recent experience with a Domain account, though.

[mike cook]

David,
I don't know whether this has been aired here or on the google site, but I had an issue when installing NTP in a non system folder. It was working fine before from the Programs x86 system folder, can't remember the version though. I followed your web page instructions, but NTP fails to start. Also tried deinstalling and re-installing in the x86 folder, same result. The reason that it won't start is that It can not open a session as the ntp account ( ./ntp) username unknown or password incorrect, error id 1326. This is probably due to the fact that I had forgotten my original password and when prompted by the the install procedure, modified the current one but it seems that it did not take effect. I was able to work round this by declaring a new account. I have as yet been unable to find a way of removing the ./ntp account. It does not appear in the user admin dialog box.

> _______________________________________________
> questions mailing list
> ques...@lists.ntp.org
> http://lists.ntp.org/listinfo/questions

[David Taylor]

On 06/05/2014 10:03, mike cook wrote:
>
> David,
> I don't know whether this has been aired here or on the google site, but I had an issue when installing NTP in a non system folder. It was working fine before from the Programs x86 system folder, can't remember the version though. I followed your web page instructions, but NTP fails to start. Also tried deinstalling and re-installing in the x86 folder, same result. The reason that it won't start is that It can not open a session as the ntp account ( ./ntp) username unknown or password incorrect, error id 1326. This is probably due to the fact that I had forgotten my original password and when prompted by the the install procedure, modified the current one but it seems that it did not take effect. I was able to work round this by declaring a new account. I have as yet been unable to find a way of removing the ./ntp account. It does not appear in the user admin dialog box.

Mike,

I've had similar reports of people who lost their NTP account password.
I would expect you could delete the account perhaps by running the
user manager as Administrator, or something like that.

Actually, I just checked and with Windows-7/64 in a workgroup, not a
domain, I can see the NTP account I created....

Maybe someone more expert in recent Windows versions can comment?

[Jean-Marc L.]

David Taylor wrote:
> I would expect you could delete the account perhaps by running the
> user manager as Administrator, or something like that.
>
> Actually, I just checked and with Windows-7/64 in a workgroup, not a
> domain, I can see the NTP account I created....

Under Windows Server 2008 I had to use the "Active Directory Users and
Computers" MMC snap-in ( dsa.msc ) to delete an old NTP account.

The NTP account was not listed in the standard user manager.

[E-Mail Sent to this address will be added to the BlackLists]

mike cook wrote:
> I have as yet been unable to find a way of removing
> the ./ntp account.
> It does not appear in the user admin dialog box.

Search the registry for SpecialAccounts,
remove it from the UserList,
it won't be hidden anymore.

[mike cook]

Le 6 mai 2014 à 21:06, E-Mail Sent to this address will be added to the BlackLists a écrit :

> mike cook wrote:
>> I have as yet been unable to find a way of removing
>> the ./ntp account.
>> It does not appear in the user admin dialog box.
>
> Search the registry for SpecialAccounts,
> remove it from the UserList,

Not found anywhere. Maybe It cleaned itself up. I did find one reg entry for .\ntp in services entries so I got rid of that. The daemon restarts ok.

> it won't be hidden anymore.
>
>
> --
> E-Mail Sent to this address <Blac...@Anitech-Systems.com>
> will be added to the BlackLists.
>