Configuring Network Time

This chapter describes how to configure a system to use chrony as an implementation of the Network Time Protocol (NTP) feature, as a replacement for ntp. The chapter also describes the Precision Time Protocol (PTP) daemons that are used to set the system time.

About the chrony Suite

chrony is a feature that implements NTP to maintain timekeeping accurately on the network. In Oracle Linux 8, 9, and 10, the chrony daemon service replaces ntpd for the management of NTP.

chrony has two components, which are provided in the chrony package:

chronyd service daemon
chronyc service utility

For practical exercises in using chrony, see https://docs.oracle.com/en/learn/ol-chrony/.

About the chronyd Service Daemon

The chronyd service daemon updates the system clock of mobile systems and virtual machines after a period of suspension or disconnection from a network. The service can also be used to implement a basic NTP client or NTP server. As an NTP server, chronyd can synchronize with upper level stratum NTP servers or act as a stratum 1 server using time signals that are received from the Global Positioning System (GPS) or radio broadcasts such as DCF77, MSF, or WWVB.

In an Oracle Linux 8, 9, or 10 system, this service daemon is enabled by default.

Note

chronyd uses NTP version 3 (RFC 1305), with features that are compatible with NTP version 4 (RFC 5905). However, chronyd does not support several important features of NTP version 4, nor does it support the use of PTP.

For more information, see the chronyd(8) manual page and files in the /usr/share/doc/chrony/ directory.

Using the chronyc Service Utility

The chronyc utility is a tool for managing the chronyd service, display information about the service's operation, or change the service's configuration.

The command operates in two modes:

Non interactive mode: In this mode, you use the following syntax:
```
sudo chronyc subcommand
```

Interactive mode: Typing the command by itself activates the interactive mode and displays the chronyc> prompt. From this prompt you can issue chronyc subcommands.

sudo chronyc

chronyc>

From the prompt, you can issue the different chronyc subcommands as needed. The following examples show the information that's generated by the sources and sourcestats subcommands:

chronyc> sources

210 Number of sources = 4
MS Name/IP address         Stratum Poll Reach LastRx Last sample
===============================================================================
^+ service1-eth3.debrecen.hp     2   6    37    21  -2117us[-2302us] +/-   50ms
^* ns2.telecom.lt                2   6    37    21   -811us[ -997us] +/-   40ms
^+ strato-ssd.vpn0.de            2   6    37    21   +408us[ +223us] +/-   78ms
^+ kvm1.websters-computers.c     2   6    37    22  +2139us[+1956us] +/-   54ms

chronyc> sourcestats

210 Number of sources = 4
Name/IP Address            NP  NR  Span  Frequency  Freq Skew  Offset  Std Dev
==============================================================================
service1-eth3.debrecen.hp   5   4   259     -0.394     41.803  -2706us   502us
ns2.telecom.lt              5   4   260     -3.948     61.422   +822us   813us
strato-ssd.vpn0.de          5   3   259      1.609     68.932   -581us   801us
kvm1.websters-computers.c   5   5   258     -0.263      9.586  +2008us   118us
chronyc> tracking
Reference ID    : 212.59.0.2 (ns2.telecom.lt)
Stratum         : 3
Ref time (UTC)  : Tue Sep 30 12:33:16 2014
System time     : 0.000354079 seconds slow of NTP time
Last offset     : -0.000186183 seconds
RMS offset      : 0.000186183 seconds
Frequency       : 28.734 ppm slow
Residual freq   : -0.489 ppm
Skew            : 11.013 ppm
Root delay      : 0.065965 seconds
Root dispersion : 0.007010 seconds
Update interval : 64.4 seconds
Leap status     : Normal

To quit using the interactive mode, type exit.

Note

Any changes you implement with the chronyc command are effective only until the next restart of the chronyd daemon. To make the changes permanent, you must enter these in the /etc/chrony.conf file. See Editing the chronyd Configuration File.

For more information, see the chronyc(1) manual page and files in the /usr/share/doc/chrony/ directory.

Configuring the chronyd Service

To configure the chronyd service on a system:

If the chrony package is not already installed, run the following command:
```
sudo dnf install chrony
```
If remote access to the local NTP service is required, configure the system firewall to allow access to the NTP service in the appropriate zones, for example:
```
sudo firewall-cmd --zone=zone --add-service=ntp
```
```
sudo firewall-cmd --zone=zone --permanent --add-service=ntp
```
Start the chronyd service and configure it to start following a system reboot.

Note that by default, chrony is enabled after installation.
```
sudo systemctl start chronyd
```
```
sudo systemctl enable chronyd
```

Editing the chronyd Configuration File

In the /etc/chrony.conf file, the default configuration assumes that the system has network access to public NTP servers with which it can synchronise.

The following example configures a system to access three NTP servers:

pool NTP_server_1
pool NTP_server_2
pool NTP_server_3
driftfile /var/lib/chrony/drift
keyfile /etc/chrony.keys
...

To configure chronyd to act as an NTP server for a specified client or subnet, use the allow directive, as shown in bold in the following example:

pool NTP_server_1
pool NTP_server_2
pool NTP_server_3
allow 192.168.2/24
driftfile /var/lib/chrony/drift
keyfile /etc/chrony.keys
...

To create keys for an authentication mechanism based on public key cryptography, use the chronyc keygen command.

Note

Autokey in ntp no longer works in chrony.

If a system has only intermittent access to NTP servers, the following configuration might be appropriate:

pool NTP_server_1 offline
pool NTP_server_2 offline
pool NTP_server_3 offline
driftfile /var/lib/chrony/drift
keyfile /etc/chrony.keys
...

If you specify the offline keyword, chronyd doesn't poll the NTP servers until it receives communication that network access is available. You can use the chronyc online and chronyc offline commands to inform chronyd of the state of network access.

For a more information about the configuration file and its directives, see the chrony.conf(5) manual page.

Converting From ntp to chrony

The following table shows file, command, and terminology equivalents between ntp and chrony.


ntp	chrony
`/etc/ntp.conf`	`/etc/chrony.conf`
`/etc/ntp/keys`	`/etc/chrony.keys`
`ntpd`	`chronyd`
`ntpq` command	`chronyc` command
`ntpd.service`	`chronyd.service`
`ntp-wait.service`	`chrony-wait.service`
`ntpdate` and `sntp` utilities	`chronyd -q` and `chronyd -t` commands

The ntpstat utility which is available in the ntpstat package, now supports chronyd. Thus, you can still use the utility in Oracle Linux 8. The command generates output that's similar to when it's used with ntp.

The /usr/share/doc/chrony/ntp2chrony.py script is available to help convert existing ntp configuration to chrony, for example:

sudo python3 /usr/share/doc/chrony/ntp2chrony.py -b -v

The script supports the conversion of the most common directives in /etc/ntp.conf to chrony. In the example, the -boption specifies to create backup configuration files before converting, while the -v option specifies to display verbose messages during the migration process.

To list the different options that you can use with the script, type the following command:

sudo python3 /usr/share/doc/chrony/ntp2chrony.py --help

About PTP

Use PTP to synchronize system clocks on a LAN more accurately than NTP. If network drivers support either hardware or software time stamping, a PTP clock can use the time stamps in PTP messages to resolve propagation delays across a network. With software time stamping, PTP synchronizes systems to within a few tens of microseconds. With hardware time stamping, PTP can synchronize systems to within a few tenths of a microsecond. If you require high-precision time synchronization of systems, use hardware time stamping.

A typical PTP configuration on an enterprise local area network consists of:

One or more grandmaster clock systems.

A grandmaster clock is typically implemented as specialized hardware that can use high-accuracy GPS signals or lower-accuracy code division multiple access (CDMA) signals, radio clock signals, or NTP as a time reference source. If several grandmaster clocks are available, the best master clock (BMC) algorithm selects the grandmaster clock based on the settings of their priority1, clockClass, clockAccuracy, offsetScaledLogVariance, and priority2 parameters and their unique identifier, in that order.
Several boundary clock systems.

Each boundary clock is backed up to a grandmaster clock on one subnetwork and relays PTP messages to one or more additional subnetworks. A boundary clock is often implemented as a function of a network switch.
Several secondary clock systems.

Each secondary clock on a subnetwork is backed up to a boundary clock, which acts as the source clock for that secondary clock.

For a basic configuration, set up a single grandmaster clock and several secondary clocks on the same network segment. This configuration eliminates the need for an intermediate layer of boundary clocks.

Grandmaster and secondary clock systems that use only one network interface for PTP are termed ordinary clocks.

Boundary clocks require at least two network interfaces for PTP: one interface acts as a secondary to a grandmaster clock or a higher-level boundary clock; the other interfaces act as masters to secondary clocks or lower-level boundary clocks.

Synchronization of boundary and secondary clock systems is achieved by sending time stamps in PTP messages. By default, PTP messages are sent in UDPv4 datagrams. You can also configure PTP to use UDPv6 datagrams or Ethernet frames as its transport mechanism.

To use PTP on a system, the driver for at least one of the system's network interfaces must support either software or hardware time stamping. To find out whether the driver for a network interface supports time stamping, use the ethtool command:

sudo ethtool -T eno1

Time stamping parameters for eno1:
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)
...

The output in the example shows that the eno1 interface supports both hardware and software time stamping capabilities.

With software time stamping, ptp4l synchronises the system clock to an external grandmaster clock.

If hardware time stamping is available, ptp4l can synchronise the PTP hardware clock to an external grandmaster clock. In this case, you use the phc2sys daemon to synchronise the system clock with the PTP hardware clock.

Configuring the PTP Service

To configure the PTP service on a system:

Install the linuxptp package.
```
sudo dnf install linuxptp
```
Edit /etc/sysconfig/ptp4l and define the start-up options for the ptp4l daemon.

Grandmaster clocks and secondary clocks require that you define only one interface.

For example, to use hardware time stamping with interface eno1 on a secondary clock:
```
OPTIONS="-f /etc/ptp4l.conf -i eno1 -s"
```
To use software time stamping instead of hardware time stamping, specify the -S option:
```
OPTIONS="-f /etc/ptp4l.conf -i eno1 -S -s"
```
Note

The -s option specifies that the clock operates only as a secondary (clientOnly mode). Don't specify this option for a grandmaster clock or a boundary clock.

For a grandmaster clock, omit the -s option, for example:
```
OPTIONS="-f /etc/ptp4l.conf -i eno1"
```
A boundary clock requires that you define at least two interfaces, for example:
```
OPTIONS="-f /etc/ptp4l.conf -i eno1 -i eno2"
```
You might need to edit the /etc/ptp4l.conf file to customize ptp4l further, for example:
- For a grandmaster clock, set the value of the priority1 parameter to a value between 0 and 127, where lesser values have greater priority when the BMC algorithm selects the grandmaster clock. For a configuration that has a single grandmaster clock, a value of 127 is suggested.
- If you set the value of summary_interval to an integer value N instead of 0, ptp4l writes summary clock statistics to /var/log/messages every 2^N seconds instead of every second (2⁰ = 1). For example, a value of 10 would correspond to an interval of 2¹⁰ or 1024 seconds.
- The logging_level parameter controls the amount of logging information that ptp4l records. The default value of logging_level is 6, which corresponds to LOG_INFO. To turn off logging, set the value of logging_level to 0. Alternatively, specify the -q option to ptp4l.
See the ptp4l(8) manual page.
Configure the system firewall to accept access by PTP event and general messages to UDP ports 319 and 320 in the appropriate zone, for example:
```
sudo firewall-cmd --zone=zone --add-port=319/udp --add-port=320/udp
```
```
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=zone --add-port=319/udp --add-port=320/udp
```
Start the ptp4l service and configure it to start following a system reboot.
```
sudo systemctl start ptp4l
```
```
sudo systemctl enable ptp4l
```
To configure phc2sys on a clock system that uses hardware time stamping:
1. Edit the /etc/sysconfig/phc2sys file and define the start-up options for the phc2sys daemon.
  
  On a boundary clock or secondary clock, synchronise the system clock with the PTP hardware clock that's associated with the secondary network interface, for example:
```
OPTIONS="-c CLOCK_REALTIME -s eno1 -w"
```
  Note
  
  The secondary network interface on a boundary clock is the one that it uses to communicate with the grandmaster clock.
  
  The -w option specifies that phc2sys waits until ptp4l has synchronised the PTP hardware clock before synchronising the system clock.
  
  On a grandmaster clock, which derives its system time from a reference time source such as GPS, CDMA, NTP, or a radio time signal, synchronise the network interface's PTP hardware clock from the system clock, for example:
```
OPTIONS="-c eno1 -s CLOCK_REALTIME -w"
```
  See the phc2sys(8) manual page.
2. Start the phc2sys service and configure it to start following a system reboot.
```
sudo systemctl start phc2sys
```
```
sudo systemctl enable phc2sys
```

You can use the pmc command to query the status of ptp4l operation. The following example shows the results of running pmc on a slave clock system that's directly connected to the grandmaster clock system without any intermediate boundary clocks:

sudo pmc -u -b 0 'GET TIME_STATUS_NP'

sending: GET TIME_STATUS_NP
	080027.fffe.7f327b-0 seq 0 RESPONSE MANAGEMENT TIME_STATUS_NP 
		master_offset              -98434
		ingress_time               1412169090025854874
		cumulativeScaledRateOffset +1.000000000
		scaledLastGmPhaseChange    0
		gmTimeBaseIndicator        0
		lastGmPhaseChange          0x0000'0000000000000000.0000
		gmPresent                  true
		gmIdentity                 080027.fffe.d9e453

sudo pmc -u -b 0 'GET CURRENT_DATA_SET'

sending: GET CURRENT_DATA_SET
	080027.fffe.7f327b-0 seq 0 RESPONSE MANAGEMENT CURRENT_DATA_SET 
		stepsRemoved     1
		offsetFromMaster  42787.0
		meanPathDelay    289207.0

This output examples include the following useful information:

gmIdentity: The unique identifier of the grandmaster clock, which is based on the MAC address of its network interface.
gmPresent: Whether an external grandmaster clock is available. This value is displayed as false on the grandmaster clock itself.
meanPathDelay: An estimate of how many nanoseconds by which synchronization messages are delayed.
offsetFromMaster: The most recent measurement of the time difference in nanoseconds relative to the grandmaster clock.
stepsRemoved: The number of network steps between this system and the grandmaster clock.

For more information, see the phc2sys(8), pmc(8), and ptp4l(8) manual pages, and IEEE 1588.

Using PTP as a Time Source for NTP

If ptp4l and phc2sys are already synchronizing the system clock, chronyd can serve that PTP-adjusted system time to NTP clients.

Add configuration similar to the following example to /etc/chrony.conf:

hwtimestamp enp1s0
local stratum 1

This example enables hardware time stamping on the specified network interface and identifies the system as a stratum-1 NTP server for clients.

Note

If remote clients need to query the server, add directives such as allow and bindaddress as required for your network design.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation

Configuring Network Time

About the chrony Suite

About the chronyd Service Daemon

Using the chronyc Service Utility

Configuring the chronyd Service

Editing the chronyd Configuration File

Converting From ntp to chrony

About PTP

Configuring the PTP Service

Using PTP as a Time Source for NTP