[ntp:questions] proprietary hardware clock as NTP reference source

apobrien apobrienster at gmail.com
Fri Jun 11 21:26:13 UTC 2010


Hello list,

I have a set of proprietary hardware timing cards (Symmetricom
bc635PCIe) which synchronize their clocks using a dedicated
interconnect.  As you might imagine the timing card conditioned time
drifts from that of the hosts they're installed in.

What I'd like to do is make the "master" timing card's time into a NTP
reference clock then use NTP to distribute that time to the other
hosts in the (private) network.

I've looked at Orphan mode and undisciplined local clocks but they
only refer to the host's software clock if I'm not mistaken.  I've
also searched through the archive but I'm afraid I lack the
appropriate terminology to get meaningful results.

Can someone point me toward (some google words maybe) creating an
arbitrary NTP reference source (under Linux)?  I think I'm just
missing something very basic.

I've been looking at the LinuxPPS project as these cards output a PPS
that I might use to condition the host clock using Linux PPS but I
don't have a 8250 serial port on these new fangled PCs.

TIA!
Andy




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