Comment # 2 on bug 959915 from Andrew Daugherity

ntpd doesn't use the file AFAIK; it appears to just be a DB for sntp to avoid
contacting servers which have given it the KoD in the past.

According to sntp(1) the KoD file can be set with -K/--kod; it will not be
created.  Most options can also be set by environment variables, in this case
SNTP_KOD.  I decided to not edit /usr/sbin/start-ntpd to add the option,
because it would get overwritten on package updates, but instead silence the
warning by adding this to /etc/sysconfig/ntp (which is sourced by start-ntpd):

export SNTP_KOD=/var/lib/ntp/sntp-kod

and touch that file once; 'export' is necessary for sntp to see the env var.

I suppose a more proper solution would be to add a "proper" sysconfig var and
parse that in start-ntpd, adding the -K ... option and touching the file if
nonexistent.

I don't know that this bug should be RESOLVED yet... I found plenty of user
reports (not specific to SUSE) of people encountering this and the response
being, "Well, does /var/db/ntp-kod exist?"  Since we don't have a /var/db
directory I think putting it under /var/lib/ntp is a better choice.