| RE: [chrony-users] chrony not observing maxpoll - bug? |
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Again, use the debugging infomation that chrony produces. In particular make
sure that you have
logdir /var/log/chrony
log measurements statistics tracking
in /etc/chrony.conf on your clients.
Then after a while look at /var/log/chrony/measurements.log
and see if the client is getting the packets.
Yes, wireless is not a good way of getting ntp packets. It is notoriously
unreliable in getting packets from one to the other on time.
Especially if the connection is being hogged by things like video or music
streaming.
On Sun, 7 Feb 2021, Charlie Laub wrote:
I may have figured out what has been going on. The clients are connected via WiFi, and I am streaming audio to them as well. It appears that a significant
fraction of the server queries are lost/dropped (or perhaps chrony throws them out for one reason or another) under this scheme. I arrived at this conclusion
after performing the following: I set the polling to have a constant 8 second interval, and then I had a script produce the output from chronyc sources every 8
seconds. I looked at the Rx value (time last good response was received), which should be 8 seconds or less, depending on when in the cycle I happened to query
it. If the value was over 8 seconds, this must be due to longer intervals between replies from the local server. Sure enough, with the audio streaming, this
sometimes grew to over 60 seconds. I find that a little strange, because the server is on my own LAN and connected by a hardwire to the router. But perhaps
because the channel is in constant use by the audio stream, which is assigned high priority by my router via Qos rules, the NTP packets might just not get
through on a regular and “timely” basis.
The solution I have put into place was to add a USB WiFi adapter to each client (an R-Pi 4). I use the Pi’s built in WiFi for NTP/chrony, and the USB adapter for
the audio stream. I used the bindacqaddress directive to restrict chrony to the built-in adapter, and the audio stream can be directed to the other using my
streaming audio software. Initial testing shows that very few server queries are dropped, so this is likely a good solution to my problem.
The only thing that I might be able to tailor and improve is why and when chrony drops or invalidates server replies. If anyone has any advice in that regard I
would like to know it. Thanks.
Get the data first. See above.
-Charlie
From: Charles Laub <charleslaub@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, February 5, 2021 2:42 PM
To: chrony-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [chrony-users] chrony not observing maxpoll - bug?
Background: I need to keep several machines well synchronized to my local NTP reference. This is for audio work, where playback needs to be tightly synchronized
between multiple computers. I previously used NTP for many years for this, but have recently switched to chrony to take advantage of its time smoothing and
filtering capabilities. I have a local "server" in my basement where the temp remains constant. It's a stable reference for other computers in my home. My
machines only poll only this one sever.
On various Linux clients, I am experiencing the following issue:
Chrony works as expected. Synchronization is achieved to high precision, e.g. tens to few hundred microseconds.
I use a fixed polling interval by setting minpoll and maxpoll to e.g. 2
To keep track of what is going on I print out the last offset every 60 seconds in an ssh terminal session
I have noticed sometimes that this value gets "stuck". Here is some example output:
Last offset : +0.001239868 seconds
Last offset : -0.001022636 seconds
Last offset : +0.000342921 seconds
Last offset : -0.000313532 seconds
Last offset : -0.001234458 seconds
Last offset : -0.001234458 seconds
Last offset : -0.000906603 seconds
Last offset : -0.000906603 seconds
Last offset : -0.000036374 seconds
Last offset : -0.000354126 seconds
Last offset : -0.000354126 seconds
Last offset : -0.000010771 seconds
Last offset : -0.000010771 seconds
Last offset : -0.000010771 seconds
Last offset : -0.000010771 seconds
Last offset : -0.000411757 seconds
Last offset : -0.000411757 seconds
Last offset : -0.000411757 seconds
It dawned on me later that this should not be happening, and when I looked at the chronyc output I found this:
pi@SPKR-left:~ $ chronyc tracking
Reference ID : C0A801FE (192.168.1.254)
Stratum : 4
Ref time (UTC) : Fri Feb 05 18:50:42 2021
System time : 0.000003940 seconds fast of NTP time
Last offset : +0.000011845 seconds
RMS offset : 0.000603218 seconds
Frequency : 6.857 ppm fast
Residual freq : +0.000 ppm
Skew : 0.059 ppm
Root delay : 0.039830066 seconds
Root dispersion : 0.003487853 seconds
Update interval : 535.4 seconds
Leap status : Normal
Notice the reported update interval of 535 seconds. But my server line includes the directives:
minpoll 2 maxpoll 2 iburst filter 8
The poll interval should remain at 2, and with filter=8 the poll should be reported every 32 seconds. 535 is certainly not the same as 32, so I suspect a bug.
This machine (Pi 4) is running chrony version 3.4, and another (an Intel box) is running 35. Both show an increase in the poll interval above 32 seconds in
chronyc. When this happens, the synchroncity becomes relatively poor so I would like to find a way to fix this problem if possible.
Let me know if there is some other info I can post that might be useful.
Thanks,
-Charlie