Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    Building a Stratum 1 NTP Server Using Raspberry Pi

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Off-Topic & Non-Support Discussion
    57 Posts 9 Posters 30.0k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • johnpozJ
      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @kiokoman
      last edited by johnpoz

      Ok... So I just rebooted and updated mine to ntpsec 1.2 so current values a bit off..

      ntpq> version
      ntpsec-1.2.0+ 2020-12-05T14:15:31Z (git rev 9842b560f)
      

      But looking over the data for last 2 days so can see 5 min entries.. This looks pretty stable to me

      finetome.png

      Those are micro seconds.. Not miliseconds.. Max offset of 0.42 ms, or 0.00042 seconds..

      That clock jitter is pretty flat..

      edit: Question for you, your running min pi install right? Or did you install the gui on your pi?

      edit2: If your looking for some tuning advice check out
      https://gpsd.gitlab.io/gpsd/gpsd-time-service-howto.html#_performance_tuning

      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

      kiokomanK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • kiokomanK
        kiokoman LAYER 8 @johnpoz
        last edited by

        @johnpoz
        yes, i'm running min install without any gui / stripped services

        ̿' ̿'\̵͇̿̿\з=(◕_◕)=ε/̵͇̿̿/'̿'̿ ̿
        Please do not use chat/PM to ask for help
        we must focus on silencing this @guest character. we must make up lies and alter the copyrights !
        Don't forget to Upvote with the 👍 button for any post you find to be helpful.

        johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • johnpozJ
          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @kiokoman
          last edited by johnpoz

          Lets see what your graphs look like after some time.. Its going to take a bit to stabilize.. How often are you polling your shm entries?

          If you were using ntpsec vs ntp you could just use the refclock entry in the ntp.conf to set an offset for your gps after you have determined what that is via say syncing with some very stable stratum 1 servers..

          With ntp you have to use the fudge servers to do a specific offset.. But that is not what effects jitter..

          I understand there is something to do with the different hats and if they are using edge or falling of the pps signal which could introduce offset, etc. And yeah I think jitter because of some bug... There was something I was reading about that - I believe it was in the link I provided about ntpsec setup.

          edit: Yup here it was
          https://www.ntpsec.org/white-papers/stratum-1-microserver-howto/#_edge_detection_issues_and_new_hats

          edit2: I just finished up playing with mine.. Have to check it in a few days.. But yeah mine is going to take a bit to fall back into rhythm.. I updated the distro, I updated ntpsec and couple of reboots in there, etc..

          So you can see mine is a bit crazy right now as well

          jitter.png

          edit3: If your going to run ntp server - you might want to add it to the pool.. For one you get an email if it gets too wacky or is not working.. So its a way to monitor how your ntp is performing.. As you can see mine is going to take a bit to get back into good running.. Check out the last entries compared to how well grouped the previous checks were..

          pool.png

          An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
          If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
          Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
          SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

          kiokomanK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • kiokomanK
            kiokoman LAYER 8 @johnpoz
            last edited by kiokoman

            @johnpoz
            i don't use shm anyway this is the difference i see between the 2 gps
            i restarted the ublox service around 13:00, where you see the spike
            Immagine2.jpg

            adafruit
            green is pps+gps
            ublox
            yellow is pps green is gps

            ̿' ̿'\̵͇̿̿\з=(◕_◕)=ε/̵͇̿̿/'̿'̿ ̿
            Please do not use chat/PM to ask for help
            we must focus on silencing this @guest character. we must make up lies and alter the copyrights !
            Don't forget to Upvote with the 👍 button for any post you find to be helpful.

            johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • johnpozJ
              johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @kiokoman
              last edited by johnpoz

              That is same same pi make and model. Same setup just the difference in the hats?

              Wow - something seems off there.. I can see why your interested now..

              What specific pi? And what specific hat? Maybe I will order one ;)

              An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
              If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
              Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
              SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

              kiokomanK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • kiokomanK
                kiokoman LAYER 8 @johnpoz
                last edited by

                @johnpoz
                yes both are raspberry pi 4 with 4gb same debian but different hat

                ̿' ̿'\̵͇̿̿\з=(◕_◕)=ε/̵͇̿̿/'̿'̿ ̿
                Please do not use chat/PM to ask for help
                we must focus on silencing this @guest character. we must make up lies and alter the copyrights !
                Don't forget to Upvote with the 👍 button for any post you find to be helpful.

                johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • johnpozJ
                  johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @kiokoman
                  last edited by johnpoz

                  What are you using to graph that like that? I would be up for getting a pi4 and the same hat to test.. Always up for fun projects ;)

                  Trying to find an excuse to get a 4 ;) hehehe

                  You seem to be pretty for out on the same hat I have, your ublox

                       remote                                   refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset   jitter
                  =======================================================================================================
                  *SHM(1)                                  .PPS.            0 l    2   16  377   0.0000  -0.3426   0.0026
                  

                  Is the hat you got.. You had to solder?
                  https://www.adafruit.com/product/2324

                  An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                  If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                  Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                  SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

                  kiokomanK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • kiokomanK
                    kiokoman LAYER 8 @johnpoz
                    last edited by kiokoman

                    @johnpoz
                    that is telegraf sending to grafana
                    grafana sitting on another raspberry ..
                    https://www.adafruit.com/product/2324
                    https://www.waveshare.com/max-m8q-gnss-hat.htm

                    adafruit need soldering this but it's easy
                    6567a574-19cb-40db-ac99-187a918ee3d8-immagine.png

                    ̿' ̿'\̵͇̿̿\з=(◕_◕)=ε/̵͇̿̿/'̿'̿ ̿
                    Please do not use chat/PM to ask for help
                    we must focus on silencing this @guest character. we must make up lies and alter the copyrights !
                    Don't forget to Upvote with the 👍 button for any post you find to be helpful.

                    stephenw10S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • stephenw10S
                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator @kiokoman
                      last edited by

                      Are those values actually in milliseconds or is it microseconds and just mislabeled?

                      Steve

                      kiokomanK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • kiokomanK
                        kiokoman LAYER 8 @stephenw10
                        last edited by

                        @stephenw10
                        the values from ntpq afaik is milliseconds ?

                        ̿' ̿'\̵͇̿̿\з=(◕_◕)=ε/̵͇̿̿/'̿'̿ ̿
                        Please do not use chat/PM to ask for help
                        we must focus on silencing this @guest character. we must make up lies and alter the copyrights !
                        Don't forget to Upvote with the 👍 button for any post you find to be helpful.

                        stephenw10S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • stephenw10S
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator @kiokoman
                          last edited by

                          Yes, it reads in milliseconds but that can get confusing when is shows a value like 0.001 (1μs).

                          Values in microseconds are what you should expect if PPS is working.

                          Less than 1μs is impressive. I generally see between 1-2μs here.

                          Steve

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • Q
                            q54e3w @kiokoman
                            last edited by

                            @kiokoman said in Building a Stratum 1 NTP Server Using Raspberry Pi:

                            and it drift up and down very mutch during the day compare to the adafruit

                            Is your device thermally stable, without some kind of TCXO its likely drift. I see fluctuations around 11am to 4pm as the sun hits the room where my timing hardware is located. Temperature corrected devices are unaffected.

                            Also, different drivers are very likely to introduce different levels of performance so try and ensure you are using same drivers (type 22 PPS vs SHM type 28 etc).

                            kiokomanK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • kiokomanK
                              kiokoman LAYER 8 @q54e3w
                              last edited by kiokoman

                              yeah, i'm using only type 20 and type 22
                              but i think i was finally able to find a configuration that suits it

                              http://www.philrandal.co.uk/blog/archives/04-01-2019_04-30-2019.html
                              with some minor adjustment

                              Immagine.jpg
                              Immagine2.jpg

                              ̿' ̿'\̵͇̿̿\з=(◕_◕)=ε/̵͇̿̿/'̿'̿ ̿
                              Please do not use chat/PM to ask for help
                              we must focus on silencing this @guest character. we must make up lies and alter the copyrights !
                              Don't forget to Upvote with the 👍 button for any post you find to be helpful.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                              • kiokomanK
                                kiokoman LAYER 8 @tman222
                                last edited by kiokoman

                                @tman222

                                I'll answer your question about nohz
                                it does not work on raspberry pi 4 + raspbian
                                the kernel isn't configured to allows the nohz parameter to work
                                also, I found that you can only use
                                flag 3 0 (use the ntpd clock discipline)
                                and not
                                flag 3 1 (use the kernel discipline)
                                for PPS
                                if you try to use flag 3 1 you see in the syslog this:

                                refclock_params: time_pps_kcbind: Operation not supported
                                

                                this is because the kernel is compiled without CONFIG_NTP_PPS

                                Immagine.jpg

                                obviusly
                                as a good nerd I recompiled ... 😑

                                this is ublox now

                                server 127.127.20.0 mode 89 iburst prefer minpoll 2 maxpoll 4
                                fudge 127.127.20.0 flag1 1 flag3 1 time1 0.0 time2 0.025 refid GPS
                                
                                pi@raspberrypi3:~/linux $ uname -a
                                Linux raspberrypi3 4.19.118-v7lntp+ #1 SMP Fri Dec 11 14:42:08 CET 2020 armv7l GNU/Linux
                                
                                pi@raspberrypi3:~/linux $ ntpq -crv -pn
                                status=041d leap_none, sync_uhf_radio, 1 event, kern,
                                version="ntpd ntpsec-1.1.3 2019-11-18T06:04:00Z", processor="armv7l", system=" Linux/4.19.118-v7lntp+", leap=00, stratum=1, precision=-20, rootdelay=0.0, rootdisp=2.18, refid=GPS, reftime=e37e600c.8bd6769d 2020-12-11T21:15:56.546Z,
                                clock=e37e6018.d0a57250 2020-12-11T21:16:08.815Z, peer=11020, tc=4, mintc=0, offset=7.8e-05, frequency=-18.907623, sys_jitter=0.000277, clk_jitter=0.000728, clk_wander=0.001816, tai=37, leapsec="2017-01-01T00:00Z",
                                expire="2021-06-28T00:00Z"
                                     remote                                   refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset   jitter
                                =======================================================================================================
                                oNMEA(0)                                 .GPS.            0 l   12   16  377   0.0000   0.0001   0.0003
                                

                                Immagine.jpg

                                ̿' ̿'\̵͇̿̿\з=(◕_◕)=ε/̵͇̿̿/'̿'̿ ̿
                                Please do not use chat/PM to ask for help
                                we must focus on silencing this @guest character. we must make up lies and alter the copyrights !
                                Don't forget to Upvote with the 👍 button for any post you find to be helpful.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • S
                                  sagliklihayatimiz Banned
                                  last edited by

                                  This post is deleted!
                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • T
                                    tman222
                                    last edited by

                                    Hi all -

                                    Wanted to follow up on this thread as I recently acquired a Stratum 1 NTP server for my network (LeoNTP - very cool little device). Currently, I have it setup as the only NTP time server on pfSense (i.e. no other servers are configured). Is this an acceptable setup, or should I be adding a few additional public Stratum 1 servers as a sanity check, and set the LeoNTP device as the preferred server? I realize with just one server I don't have any redundancy, but is that the only main drawback? Thanks in advance!

                                    kiokomanK Q 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • kiokomanK
                                      kiokoman LAYER 8 @tman222
                                      last edited by kiokoman

                                      @tman222
                                      if I remember correctly you need at least 3 good ntp server on the list to see if the leontp is working correctly
                                      without any reference you don't know if the time is correct

                                      ̿' ̿'\̵͇̿̿\з=(◕_◕)=ε/̵͇̿̿/'̿'̿ ̿
                                      Please do not use chat/PM to ask for help
                                      we must focus on silencing this @guest character. we must make up lies and alter the copyrights !
                                      Don't forget to Upvote with the 👍 button for any post you find to be helpful.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • Q
                                        q54e3w @tman222
                                        last edited by

                                        @tman222 I run a few Pi based GPS devices that don't offer the same accuracy, and a few external sources for backup. The LeoNTP takes precedence as primary source of time due to its accuracy.

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • T
                                          tman222
                                          last edited by

                                          Thanks @kiokoman and @q54e3w, I really appreciate the help and advice. Do either of you use the "prefer" keyword on your local NTP server(s), or do you leave the server choice solely to the selection algorithm? Thanks again.

                                          kiokomanK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • kiokomanK
                                            kiokoman LAYER 8 @tman222
                                            last edited by

                                            @tman222
                                            this is my config for the ublox

                                            server 127.127.20.0 mode 89 iburst prefer minpoll 2 maxpoll 4
                                            fudge 127.127.20.0 flag1 1 flag3 1 time1 0.0 time2 0.025 refid GPS
                                            
                                            tos mindist 0.060
                                            
                                            server 192.168.10.200
                                            server 151.3.106.211
                                            server ntp1.inrim.it
                                            server ntp2.inrim.it
                                            pool 0.it.pool.ntp.org
                                            pool 1.it.pool.ntp.org
                                            

                                            this is the results

                                            remote                          refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset   jitter
                                            ========================================================================================
                                            oNMEA(0)                        .GPS.            0 l   11   16  377   0.0000   0.0002   0.0003
                                            +192.168.10.200                 .GPS.            1 u   42   64  377   0.0996  -0.0002   0.0149
                                            +151.3.106.211                  .GPS.            1 u   40   64  377  24.2144   0.1478   0.9674
                                            -193.204.114.232                .CTD.            1 u   59   64  377  25.2698  -4.7052   0.3729
                                            +193.204.114.233                .CTD.            1 u   49   64  377  12.5229   0.0942   0.3967
                                             0.it.pool.ntp.org              .POOL.          16 p    -  256    0   0.0000   0.0000   0.0010
                                             1.it.pool.ntp.org              .POOL.          16 p    -  256    0   0.0000   0.0000   0.0010
                                            -37.247.53.178                  193.204.114.233  2 u   57   64  377  11.9465   1.0424   0.6543
                                            -162.159.200.123                10.20.14.167     3 u   37   64  377  25.2151   0.8878   0.4707
                                            +212.45.144.206                 193.204.114.232  2 u    9   64  377  10.5258   0.5104   0.3046
                                            

                                            2bec0572-bb2b-4b3f-bb7e-f9ea25d706d3-image.png

                                            ̿' ̿'\̵͇̿̿\з=(◕_◕)=ε/̵͇̿̿/'̿'̿ ̿
                                            Please do not use chat/PM to ask for help
                                            we must focus on silencing this @guest character. we must make up lies and alter the copyrights !
                                            Don't forget to Upvote with the 👍 button for any post you find to be helpful.

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                            • First post
                                              Last post
                                            Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.