> CURRENT's ntp has been less than perfect. I have another thread going
 > atm where ntpd is panicing my kernel. Prior to that, ntp failed to
 > service requests ... or did so intermittently .... on a domu, ntpdate on
 > boot is useless.

    As a wild guess, don't use the in-kernel NTP PLL.  Either add
"disable kernel" to the ntp config, or remove "options NTP" from the
kernel configuration.

 > Is there documentation stating timed is deprecated? If it is merely
 > historic, why is it in current? I found the use of broadcast and no
 > config quite alluring due to the issues I've had with ntp ... and the
 > frequency with which I create new domus.

    It's probably still there for the same reasons rsh, uucp, and a
host of other obsolescent programs are there.  You might have good
reason to be using the older thing.


    Timed's benefit is that it's simple.  Timed's downside is that
it's simple.  NTP is much more clever, but at a cost of complexity.

    NTP can be configured in a host of ways, including methods that
are comparable to timed; see
http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/html/manyopt.html

    AFAIK, all options will involve a small config file, but this
shouldn't be an obstacle.  If you're creating lots of domUs,
populating relatively static configuration files ought to be an
automated part of it -- how are you setting timed=YES in rc.conf?