Re: [chrony-users] Chrony without daemon

[Rob Janssen <chrony-users@xxxxxxxxx>]

    You need to provide the -h parameter to chronyc.
    
    E.g. chronyc -h 1.2.3.4 sources
    Or: chronyc -h 1.2.3.4 tracking
    (when the chronyd you want to watch is on a system with IP address
    1.2.3.4)
    
    Again, you DO NOT need to run the daemon on the system (pod) where
    you run chronyc.
    You only need to provide IP connectivity between the two, and to use
    "cmdallow" in the
    chronyd configuration file(s) to allow the IP address where chronyc
    is used.
    
    Example: chronyc -h 44.137.72.10 tracking
    Reference ID    : 50505300 (PPS)
    Stratum         : 1
    Ref time (UTC)  : Tue Aug 05 09:27:29 2025
    System time     : 0.000000054 seconds slow of NTP time
    Last offset     : +0.000000108 seconds
    RMS offset      : 0.000001205 seconds
    Frequency       : 10.403 ppm fast
    Residual freq   : -0.000 ppm
    Skew            : 0.025 ppm
    Root delay      : 0.000000001 seconds
    Root dispersion : 0.000025486 seconds
    Update interval : 16.0 seconds
    Leap status     : Normal
    
    Rob

On 2025-08-05 10:22, Remush wrote:

I'll try to elaborate more about what I'm trying to achieve.

First of all, I'm very grateful for the detailed and well-explained comments you made.

My objective is to monitor a drift between 3 NTP servers.

`chronyc sources` provides a wonderful and simple output just for that purpose.

The issue I'm having is the following:

I'm using Openshift as my base, and my solution was to simply set a pod with a chrony image and run the command,

sadly to my understanding, openshift pods doesn't have access to systemd, meaning I can't set a chronyd daemon on the Pod it self.

"chrony tracking" also returns the error message "506 can't talk with daemon".

Honestly I really think that because of that Openshift limitation I won't find any way to actually run "chronyc sources".

I'm not completely understanding what it means to run `chronyd -U -x`.

I actually run it successfully, and it created a chronyd.pid, but "chronyc sources" still return "506 Cannot talk to daemon"

Am I missing something? 

‫בתאריך יום ג׳, 5 באוג׳ 2025 ב-11:04 מאת ‪Rob Janssen‬‏ <‪chrony-users@xxxxxxxxx‬‏>:‬

My guess was that he was attempting monitoring of an existing chronyd outside
his container.
I have done that (way) in the past to monitor time service using nagios.
I just installed (copied) the chronyc binary to the monitoring system, which
itself was running ntpd, and made a check_chrony script that did a
chronyc call (from a perl skeleton available for nagios).
Probably not the most efficient way, but it works.  I used "chronyc tracking",
of course with a -h parameter.

But maybe I am completely wrong guessing his objectives... it is not very
clear from the explanation.

Rob

On 2025-08-05 09:20, Mingye Wang wrote:

So uh Rob gave a good explanation of how chrony works, but honestly:
this smells like an "XY problem" to me. What are you attempting to do,
actually, by getting `chronyc sources`? In other words, what
information do you *really* need?