Chapter 28. Chrony with HW timestamping

To verify that hardware timestamping with NTP is supported by an interface, use the ethtool -T command. An interface can be used for hardware timestamping with NTP if ethtool lists the SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_HARDWARE and SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SOFTWARE capabilities and also the HWTSTAMP_FILTER_ALL filter mode.

# ethtool -T eth0

Timestamping parameters for eth0:
Capabilities:
        hardware-transmit     (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_HARDWARE)
        software-transmit     (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SOFTWARE)
        hardware-receive      (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_RX_HARDWARE)
        software-receive      (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_RX_SOFTWARE)
        software-system-clock (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_SOFTWARE)
        hardware-raw-clock    (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_RAW_HARDWARE)
PTP Hardware Clock: 0
Hardware Transmit Timestamp Modes:
        off                   (HWTSTAMP_TX_OFF)
        on                    (HWTSTAMP_TX_ON)
Hardware Receive Filter Modes:
        none                  (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_NONE)
        all                   (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_ALL)
        ptpv1-l4-sync         (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V1_L4_SYNC)
        ptpv1-l4-delay-req    (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V1_L4_DELAY_REQ)
        ptpv2-l4-sync         (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V2_L4_SYNC)
        ptpv2-l4-delay-req    (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V2_L4_DELAY_REQ)
        ptpv2-l2-sync         (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V2_L2_SYNC)
        ptpv2-l2-delay-req    (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V2_L2_DELAY_REQ)
        ptpv2-event           (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V2_EVENT)
        ptpv2-sync            (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V2_SYNC)
        ptpv2-delay-req       (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V2_DELAY_REQ)

To enable hardware timestamping, use the hwtimestamp directive in the /etc/chrony.conf file. The directive can either specify a single interface, or a wildcard character can be used to enable hardware timestamping on all interfaces that support it. Use the wildcard specification in case that no other application, like ptp4l from the linuxptp package, is using hardware timestamping on an interface. Multiple hwtimestamp directives are allowed in the chrony configuration file.

hwtimestamp eth0
hwtimestamp eth1
hwtimestamp *

The default range of a polling interval (64-1024 seconds) is recommended for servers on the Internet. For local servers and hardware timestamping, a shorter polling interval needs to be configured in order to minimize offset of the system clock.

The following directive in /etc/chrony.conf specifies a local NTP server using one second polling interval:

server ntp.local minpoll 0 maxpoll 0

NTP servers that are not hardware NTP appliances, but rather general purpose computers running a software NTP implementation, like chrony, will get a hardware transmit timestamp only after sending a packet. This behavior prevents the server from saving the timestamp in the packet to which it corresponds. In order to enable NTP clients receiving transmit timestamps that were generated after the transmission, configure the clients to use the NTP interleaved mode by adding the xleave option to the server directive in /etc/chrony.conf:

server ntp.local minpoll 0 maxpoll 0 xleave

The default server configuration allows a few thousands of clients at most to use the interleaved mode concurrently. To configure the server for a larger number of clients, increase the clientloglimit directive in /etc/chrony.conf. This directive specifies the maximum size of memory allocated for logging of clients' access on the server:

clientloglimit 100000000

To verify that the interface has successfully enabled hardware timestamping, check the system log. The log should contain a message from chronyd for each interface with successfully enabled hardware timestamping.

chronyd[4081]: Enabled HW timestamping on eth0
chronyd[4081]: Enabled HW timestamping on eth1

When chronyd is configured as an NTP client or peer, you can have the transmit and receive timestamping modes and the interleaved mode reported for each NTP source by the chronyc ntpdata command:

# chronyc ntpdata

Remote address  : 203.0.113.15 (CB00710F)
Remote port     : 123
Local address   : 203.0.113.74 (CB00714A)
Leap status     : Normal
Version         : 4
Mode            : Server
Stratum         : 1
Poll interval   : 0 (1 seconds)
Precision       : -24 (0.000000060 seconds)
Root delay      : 0.000015 seconds
Root dispersion : 0.000015 seconds
Reference ID    : 47505300 (GPS)
Reference time  : Wed May 03 13:47:45 2017
Offset          : -0.000000134 seconds
Peer delay      : 0.000005396 seconds
Peer dispersion : 0.000002329 seconds
Response time   : 0.000152073 seconds
Jitter asymmetry: +0.00
NTP tests       : 111 111 1111
Interleaved     : Yes
Authenticated   : No
TX timestamping : Hardware
RX timestamping : Hardware
Total TX        : 27
Total RX        : 27
Total valid RX  : 27

# chronyc sourcestats

210 Number of sources = 1
Name/IP Address            NP  NR  Span  Frequency  Freq Skew  Offset  Std Dev
ntp.local                  12   7    11     +0.000      0.019     +0ns    49ns

If a highly accurate Precision Time Protocol (PTP) primary timeserver is available in a network that does not have switches or routers with PTP support, a computer may be dedicated to operate as a PTP client and a stratum-1 NTP server. Such a computer needs to have two or more network interfaces, and be close to the primary timeserver or have a direct connection to it. This will ensure highly accurate synchronization in the network.

Configure the ptp4l and phc2sys programs from the linuxptp packages to use one interface to synchronize the system clock using PTP.

Configure chronyd to provide the system time using the other interface:

bindaddress 203.0.113.74
hwtimestamp eth1
local stratum 1