🚀 go-pugleaf

We use xntp exclusively in a setup similar to yours.  One SPARCstation
running PPP is our IP gateway to the world, and runs an xntpd that
chimes with several extralocal clocks.  All the other machines on our
local network run xntpd or ntpd and chime with each other and the
gateway machine.  The load on the systems and the network is somewhere
between unmeasureable and miniscule.  

If a machine had previously run timed when delivered, that line is
commented out of its rc scripts and replaced with an NTP daemon
invocation as soon as I get it compiled and running on each new
architecture.  In your situation, your strategy of running a harmless
timed master is probably a good idea, to help with those machines that
can't yet run xntpd.

I don't know why Sun doesn't provide some sort of timekeeping system,
especially considering how confused applications get when NFS clients
and servers have different ideas about the time.  A few vendors, but
not many, are now shipping timekeepers with their systems.  Perhaps
it's a matter of waiting until the "research toys" filter down into
the "real world" of commercial demands.