Frequently Asked Questions
Table of Contents
o 1. chrony compared to other programs
? 1.1. How does chrony compare to ntpd?
o 2. Configuration issues
? 2.1. What is the minimum recommended configuration for an NTP client?
? 2.2. How do I make an NTP server from an NTP client?
? 2.3. I have several computers on a LAN. Should be all clients of an
external server?
? 2.4. Must I specify servers by IP address if DNS is not available on
chronyd start?
? 2.5. How can I make chronyd more secure?
? 2.6. How can I improve the accuracy of the system clock with NTP
sources?
? 2.7. What happened to the commandkey and generatecommandkey directives?
o 3. Computer is not synchronising
? 3.1. Behind a firewall?
? 3.2. Are NTP servers specified with the offline option?
? 3.3. Is chronyd allowed to step the system clock?
o 4. Issues with chronyc
? 4.1. I keep getting the error 506 Cannot talk to daemon
? 4.2. I keep getting the error 501 Not authorised
? 4.3. Why does chronyc tracking always print an IPv4 address as
reference ID?
? 4.4. Is the chronyc / chronyd protocol documented anywhere?
o 5. Real-time clock issues
? 5.1. What is the real-time clock (RTC)?
? 5.2. I want to use chronyd's RTC support. Must I disable hwclock?
? 5.3. I just keep getting the 513 RTC driver not running message
? 5.4. I get Could not open /dev/rtc, Device or resource busy in my
syslog file
o 6. NTP-specific issues
? 6.1. Can chronyd be driven from broadcast NTP servers?
? 6.2. Can chronyd transmit broadcast NTP packets?
? 6.3. Can chronyd keep the system clock a fixed offset away from real
time?
? 6.4. What happens if the network connection is dropped without using
chronyc's offline command first?
o 7. Operating systems
? 7.1. Does chrony support Windows?
? 7.2. Are there any plans to support Windows?
1. chrony compared to other programs
1.1. How does chrony compare to ntpd?
chronyd was designed to work well in a wide range of conditions and it can
usually synchronise the system clock faster and with better time accuracy. It
doesn't implement some of the less useful NTP modes like broadcast client or
multicast server/client.
If your computer is connected to the Internet only for few minutes at a time,
the network connection is often congested, you turn your computer off or
suspend it frequently, the clock is not very stable (e.g. there are rapid
changes in the temperature or it's a virtual machine), or you want to use NTP
on an isolated network with no hardware reference clocks in sight, chrony will
probably work much better for you.
For a more detailed comparison of features and performance, see the comparison
page on the chrony website.
2. Configuration issues
2.1. What is the minimum recommended configuration for an NTP client?
First, the client needs to know which NTP servers it should ask for the current
time. They are specified by the server or pool directive. The pool directive
can be used for names that resolve to multiple addresses. For good reliability
the client should have at least three servers. The iburst option speeds up the
initial synchronisation.
To stabilize the initial synchronisation on the next start, the estimated drift
of the system clock is saved to a file specified by the driftfile directive.
If the system clock can be far from the true time after boot for any reason,
chronyd should be allowed to correct it quickly by stepping instead of slewing,
which would take a very long time. The makestep directive does that.
In order to keep the real-time clock (RTC) close to the true time, so the
system time is reasonably close to the true time when it's initialized on the
next boot from the RTC, the rtcsync directive enables a mode in which the
system time is periodically copied to the RTC. It is supported on Linux and Mac
OS X.
If you want to use public NTP servers from the pool.ntp.org project, the
minimal chrony.conf file could be:
pool pool.ntp.org iburst
driftfile /var/lib/chrony/drift
makestep 1 3
rtcsync
2.2. How do I make an NTP server from an NTP client?
You need to add an allow directive to the chrony.conf file in order to open the
NTP port and allow chronyd to reply to client requests. allow with no specified
subnet allows all IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.
2.3. I have several computers on a LAN. Should be all clients of an external
server?
The best configuration is usually to make one computer the server, with the
others as clients of it. Add a local directive to the server's chrony.conf
file. This configuration will be better because
o the load on the external connection is less
o the load on the external NTP server(s) is less
o if your external connection goes down, the computers on the LAN will
maintain a common time with each other.
2.4. Must I specify servers by IP address if DNS is not available on chronyd
start?
No. Starting from version 1.25, chronyd will keep trying to resolve the names
specified by the server, pool, and peer directives in an increasing interval
until it succeeds. The online command can be issued from chronyc to try to
resolve them immediately.
2.5. How can I make chronyd more secure?
If you don't need to serve time to NTP clients or peers, you can add port 0 to
the chrony.conf file to completely disable the NTP server functionality and
prevent NTP requests from reaching chronyd. Starting from version 2.0, the NTP
server port is open only when client access is allowed by the allow directive
or command, an NTP peer is configured, or the broadcast directive is used.
If you don't need to use chronyc remotely, you can add the following directives
to the configuration file to bind the command sockets to the loopback
interface. This is done by default since version 2.0.
bindcmdaddress 127.0.0.1
bindcmdaddress ::1
If you don't need to use chronyc at all or you need to run chronyc only under
the root or chrony user (which can access chronyd through a Unix domain socket
since version 2.2), you can disable the internet command sockets completely by
adding cmdport 0 to the configuration file.
You can specify an unprivileged user with the -u option, or the user directive
in the chrony.conf file, to which chronyd will switch after start in order to
drop root privileges. The configure script has a --with-user option, which sets
the default user. On Linux, chronyd needs to be compiled with support for the
libcap library. On other systems, chronyd forks into two processes. The child
process retains root privileges, but can only perform a very limited range of
privileged system calls on behalf of the parent.
Also, if chronyd is compiled with support for the Linux secure computing
(seccomp) facility, you can enable a system call filter with the -F option. It
will significantly reduce the kernel attack surface and possibly prevent kernel
exploits from the chronyd process if it's compromised. It's recommended to
enable the filter only when it's known to work on the version of the system
where chrony is installed as the filter needs to allow also system calls made
from libraries that chronyd is using (e.g. libc) and different versions or
implementations of the libraries may make different system calls. If the filter
is missing some system call, chronyd could be killed even in normal operation.
2.6. How can I improve the accuracy of the system clock with NTP sources?
Select NTP servers that are well synchronised, stable and close to your
network. It's better to use more than one server, three or four is usually
recommended as the minimum, so chronyd can detect servers that serve false time
and combine measurements from multiple sources.
There are also useful options which can be set in the server directive, they
are minpoll, maxpoll, polltarget, maxdelay, maxdelayratio and maxdelaydevratio.
The first three options set the minimum and maximum allowed polling interval,
and how should be the actual interval adjusted in the specified range. Their
default values are 6 (64 seconds) for minpoll, 10 (1024 seconds) for maxpoll
and 6 (samples) for polltarget. The default values should be used for general
servers on the Internet. With your own NTP servers or if have permission to
poll some servers more frequently, setting these options for shorter polling
intervals may significantly improve the accuracy of the system clock.
The optimal polling interval depends mainly on two factors, stability of the
network latency and stability of the system clock (which mainly depends on the
temperature sensitivity of the crystal oscillator and the maximum rate of the
temperature change).
An example of the directive for an NTP server on the Internet that you are
allowed to poll frequently could be
server foo.example.net minpoll 4 maxpoll 6 polltarget 16
An example using very short polling intervals for a server located in the same
LAN could be
server ntp.local minpoll 2 maxpoll 4 polltarget 30
The maxdelay options are useful to ignore measurements with larger delay (e.g.
due to congestion in the network) and improve the stability of the
synchronisation. The maxdelaydevratio option could be added to the example with
local NTP server
server ntp.local minpoll 2 maxpoll 4 polltarget 30 maxdelaydevratio 2
2.7. What happened to the commandkey and generatecommandkey directives?
They were removed in version 2.2. Authentication is no longer supported in the
command protocol. Commands that required authentication are now allowed only
through a Unix domain socket, which is accessible only by the root and chrony
users. If you need to configure chronyd remotely or locally without the root
password, please consider using ssh and/or sudo to run chronyc under the root
or chrony user on the host where chronyd is running.
3. Computer is not synchronising
This is the most common problem. There are a number of reasons, see the
following questions.
3.1. Behind a firewall?
Check the Reach value printed by the chronyc's sources command. If it's zero,
it means chronyd did not get any valid responses from the NTP server you are
trying to use. If there is a firewall between you and the server, the packets
may be blocked. Try using a tool like wireshark or tcpdump to see if you're
getting any responses from the server.
When chronyd is receiving responses from the servers, the output of the sources
command issued few minutes after chronyd start might look like this:
210 Number of sources = 3
MS Name/IP address Stratum Poll Reach LastRx Last sample
===============================================================================
^* foo.example.net 2 6 377 34 +484us[ -157us] +/- 30ms
^- bar.example.net 2 6 377 34 +33ms[ +32ms] +/- 47ms
^+ baz.example.net 3 6 377 35 -1397us[-2033us] +/- 60ms
3.2. Are NTP servers specified with the offline option?
Check that you're using chronyc's online and offline commands appropriately.
Again, check in measurements.log to see if you're getting any data back from
the server.
3.3. Is chronyd allowed to step the system clock?
By default, chronyd adjusts the clock gradually by slowing it down or speeding
it up. If the clock is too far from the true time, it will take a long time to
correct the error. The System time value printed by the chronyc's tracking
command is the remaining correction that needs to be applied to the system
clock.
The makestep directive can be used to allow chronyd to step the clock. For
example, if chrony.conf had
makestep 1 3
the clock would be stepped in the first three updates if its offset was larger
than one second. Normally, it's recommended to allow the step only in the first
few updates, but in some cases (e.g. a computer without an RTC or virtual
machine which can be suspended and resumed with an incorrect time) it may be
necessary to allow the step on any clock update. The example above would change
to
makestep 1 -1
4. Issues with chronyc
4.1. I keep getting the error 506 Cannot talk to daemon
When accessing chronyd remotely, make sure that the chrony.conf file (on the
computer where chronyd is running) has a cmdallow entry for the computer you
are running chronyc on and an appropriate bindcmdaddress directive. This isn't
necessary for localhost.
Perhaps chronyd is not running. Try using the ps command (e.g. on Linux, ps
-auxw) to see if it's running. Or try netstat -a and see if the ports 123/udp
and 323/udp are listening. If chronyd is not running, you may have a problem
with the way you are trying to start it (e.g. at boot time).
Perhaps you have a firewall set up in a way that blocks packets on port 323/
udp. You need to amend the firewall configuration in this case.
4.2. I keep getting the error 501 Not authorised
Since version 2.2, the password command doesn't do anything and chronyc needs
to run locally under the root or chrony user, which are allowed to access the
chronyd's Unix domain command socket.
With older versions, you need to authenticate with the password command first
or use the -a option to authenticate automatically on start. The configuration
file needs to specify a file which contains keys (keyfile directive) and which
key in the key file should be used for chronyc authentication (commandkey
directive).
4.3. Why does chronyc tracking always print an IPv4 address as reference ID?
The reference ID is a 32-bit value and is always printed in quad-dotted
notation, even if the reference source doesn't have an IPv4 address. For IPv4
addresses, the reference ID is equal to the address, but for IPv6 addresses it
is the first 32 bits of the MD5 sum of the address. For reference clocks, the
reference ID is the value specified with the refid option in the refclock
directive.
If you need to get the IP address of the current reference source, use the -n
option to disable resolving of IP addresses and read the second field (printed
in parentheses) on the Reference ID line.
4.4. Is the chronyc / chronyd protocol documented anywhere?
Only by the source code. See cmdmon.c (chronyd side) and client.c (chronyc
side).
5. Real-time clock issues
5.1. What is the real-time clock (RTC)?
This is the clock which keeps the time even when your computer is turned off.
It is used to initialize the system clock on boot. It normally doesn't drift
more than few seconds per day.
There are two approaches how chronyd can work with it. One is to use the
rtcsync directive, which tells chronyd to enable a kernel mode which sets the
RTC from the system clock every 11 minutes. chronyd itself won't touch the RTC.
If the computer is not turned off for a long time, the RTC should still be
close to the true time when the system clock will be initialized from it on the
next boot.
The other option is to use the rtcfile directive, which tells chronyd to
monitor the rate at which the RTC gains or loses time. When chronyd is started
with the -s option on the next boot, it will set the system time from the RTC
and also compensate for the drift it has measured previously. The rtcautotrim
directive can be used to keep the RTC close to the true time, but it's not
strictly necessary if its only purpose is to set the system clock when chronyd
is started on boot. See the documentation for details.
5.2. I want to use chronyd's RTC support. Must I disable hwclock?
The hwclock program is often set-up by default in the boot and shutdown scripts
with many Linux installations. With the kernel RTC synchronisation (rtcsync
directive), the RTC will be set also every 11 minutes as long as the system
clock is synchronised. If you want to use chronyd's RTC monitoring (rtcfile
directive), it's important to disable hwclock in the shutdown procedure. If you
don't, it will over-write the RTC with a new value, unknown to chronyd. At the
next reboot, chronyd started with the -s option will compensate this (wrong)
time with its estimate of how far the RTC has drifted whilst the power was off,
giving a meaningless initial system time.
There is no need to remove hwclock from the boot process, as long as chronyd is
started after it has run.
5.3. I just keep getting the 513 RTC driver not running message
For the real-time clock support to work, you need the following three things
o an RTC in your computer
o a Linux kernel with enabled RTC support
o an rtcfile directive in your chrony.conf file
5.4. I get Could not open /dev/rtc, Device or resource busy in my syslog file
Some other program running on the system may be using the device.
6. NTP-specific issues
6.1. Can chronyd be driven from broadcast NTP servers?
No, the broadcast client mode is not supported and there is currently no plan
to implement it. The broadcast and multicast modes are inherently less accurate
and less secure (even with authentication) than the ordinary server/client mode
and they are not as useful as they used to be. Even with very modest hardware a
single NTP server can serve time to hundreds of thousands of clients using the
ordinary mode.
6.2. Can chronyd transmit broadcast NTP packets?
Yes, the broadcast directive can be used to enable the broadcast server mode to
serve time to clients in the network which support the broadcast client mode
(it's not supported in chronyd, see the previous question).
6.3. Can chronyd keep the system clock a fixed offset away from real time?
This is not possible as the program currently stands.
6.4. What happens if the network connection is dropped without using chronyc's
offline command first?
chronyd will keep trying to access the server(s) that it thinks are online.
When the network is connected again, it will take some time (on average half of
the maximum polling interval) before new measurements are made and the clock is
corrected. If the servers were set to offline and the online command was issued
when the network was connected, chronyd would make new measurements
immediately.
The auto_offline option to the server entry in the chrony.conf file may be
useful to switch the servers to the offline state automatically.
7. Operating systems
7.1. Does chrony support Windows?
No. The chronyc program (the command-line client used for configuring chronyd
while it is running) has been successfully built and run under Cygwin in the
past. chronyd is not portable, because part of it is very system-dependent. It
needs adapting to work with Windows' equivalent of the adjtimex() call, and it
needs to be made to work as a service.
7.2. Are there any plans to support Windows?
We have no plans to do this. Anyone is welcome to pick this work up and
contribute it back to the project.
Last updated 2016-11-21 12:03:45 CET
