[ntp:questions] Clarification of protostats decoding - status word and event message code

Brian Inglis Brian.Inglis at SystematicSw.ab.ca
Tue Apr 5 06:48:20 UTC 2016


On 2016-04-03 19:32, Frank Wayne wrote:
> I'm trying to understand what the fields in the protostats file are
> and there are a couple of items for which the documentation (the
> "Event Messages and Status Words" page) is unhelpful. Below is the
> example event given on the "Monitoring Commands and Options" page of
> the documentation, for the sake of discussion.
>
> 49213 525.624 128.4.1.1 963a 8a message
>
> 963a is the "status word". I assume this is the "peer status word",
> the same as in peerstats, and not the "system status word", which
> doesn't seem to show up in any stats files as far as I can tell. Can
> anyone confirm that this can always be decoded as a "peer status
> word" (status:select:count:code)?

It's a peer status word unless the address is 0.0.0.0, when it's a
system status word, or the event nibble is 0xb clock event, when the
message is a clock event message.
You will only see these messages in the log if you have enabled high
logging levels e.g. "logconfig =allall" in ntp.conf, or in protostats,
and usually only at startup.
If you see them at other times, it is likely to be a serious network
or refclock problem, or other exceptional event, such as a leap second.

> 8a is the "event message code" and is not described anywhere as far
> as I can tell. The least significant nybble always seems to be the
> same as the least significant nybble of the imprecisely-named "status
> word", as does the most significant bit, but I don't have enough
> samples to make any conclusions. Does anyone know what this is?

All peer event message codes are ored with 0x80 and all crypto event
message codes are ored with 0x100 to distinguish them from system and
clock events. See the source:
     egrep 'EVNT_|_EVENT' **/include/ntp{,_crypto}.h.

Most of the peer messages have event message codes:
    81 mobilize
     83 unreachable
    84 reachable
    8a sys_peer

Selected sample startup log and protostats entries stripping 81 and 84:

...ntpd[3360]: 0.0.0.0 c01e 0e TAI 36 leap 201507010000 expire 201612280000
...ntpd[3360]: 0.0.0.0 c016 06 restart
...ntpd[3360]: 0.0.0.0 c012 02 freq_set ntpd 1.010 PPM
...ntpd[3360]: GPS_NMEA(4) 802b 8b clock_event clk_no_reply
...ntpd[3360]: 216.228.192.69 903a 8a sys_peer
...ntpd[3360]: 0.0.0.0 c61c 0c clock_step +3.424864 s
...ntpd[3360]: 0.0.0.0 c614 04 freq_mode
...ntpd[3360]: 0.0.0.0 c618 08 no_sys_peer
...ntpd[3360]: GPS_NMEA(4) 904a 8a sys_peer

57470 1547.977 0.0.0.0 c01e 0e TAI 36 leap 201507010000 expire 201612280000
57470 1548.008 0.0.0.0 c016 06 restart
57470 1548.008 0.0.0.0 c012 02 freq_set ntpd 1.010 PPM
57470 1548.008 GPS_NMEA(4) 802b 8b clock_event clk_no_reply
57470 1555.832 216.228.192.69 903a 8a sys_peer
57470 1555.832 0.0.0.0 c61c 0c clock_step +3.424864 s
57470 1562.008 0.0.0.0 c614 04 freq_mode
57470 1562.008 0.0.0.0 c618 08 no_sys_peer
57470 1567.207 GPS_NMEA(4) 904a 8a sys_peer

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada


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