Hello, The server directive has an option "minstratum" which increases the stratum of the source to affect its preference. In opinion, there should also be an opposite directive perhaps called "maxstratum" that will do the opposite. It will lower the stratum of the source to affect its preference. Consider the official time of Canada provided by the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). According to their website (link below) they operate stratum 1 servers internally, and they also operate stratum 2 server which get their time from the stratum 1 internal servers. Public dissemination of NTP time is only available via their stratum 2 servers, but not stratum 1 servers. Although I don't know their exact synchronisation mechanism between their stratum 1 and stratum 2 server, considering that this is a government organization providing the official time of Canada, it is likely that they use highly accurate synchronisation methods. Their website states "For all practical purposes, the average time disseminated by the stratum-2 server is the same as the stratum-1 servers." It would therefore be reasonable in my opinion to be able to adjust their NTP source from stratum 2 to stratum 1 in Chrony, and currently, there is no such possibility.
What are your thoughts on adding maxstratum option to the server directive that decreases the stratum of a source for preference purposes? I think it makes sense to have this option, and this option would only affect the preference of the source. It would not affect the advertised stratum level of the chrony server to its clients. NRC website link: https://nrc.canada.ca/en/certifications-evaluations-standards/canadas-official-time/network-time-protocol-ntp Many thanks to everyone, and Miroslav in particular.
