[ntp:hackers] NTP two-step on-wire protocol

[David L. Mills]

Tim,

Look carefully at PTP (IEEE1588). The on-wire computations are identical 
to NTP. The leapsecond and TAI conventions are identical to NTP, except 
that PTP runs on TAI, while NTP runs on UTC. The server selection 
algoritm and transparent end-end and transparent peer-peer protocols are 
not NTP, but the ideas could be ported over.

A PTP grandmaster is what NTP calls a primary server. A PTP boundary 
clock is what NTP calls a secondary server. A PTP ordinary clock without 
external source of synchronization is what NTP calls a client. Broadast 
and client/server modes are in PTP, but not symmetric modes. The devil 
is in the details.

I am not proposing NTP be ported to the Ethernet NIC, although at least 
one 1588 Ethernet NIC has awesome horsepower with an onboard ARM prime 
mover. I am promoting a scheme that allows PTP and NTP to interoperate 
in the form of a modified NIC driver that can import and export 
timestamps to and from the kernel system time variable. I am also 
promoting output timestamps for NTP. Heck, let's just port FreeBSD to 
the ARM and start a whole new adventure.

Dave

Tim Shoppa wrote:

> "todd glassey" <tglassey at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> Are we ass a group interested?
>
>
> Are you talking about embedding NTP into the stack which lives on
> the network card?
>
> Not me, I'm not interested. Why the heck would you want two different
> ntpd's running on a machine, one on the network card and one on the
> main CPU?
>
> Tim.