[enhancement] Chrony config doesn't reflect hardware timestamping capability

Bug #1789872 reported by Mark Shuttleworth
6
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
MAAS
Fix Released
Medium
Mike Pontillo
NTP Charm
Triaged
Wishlist
Unassigned

Bug Description

Hardware timestamping makes chrony syncing much more accurate, especially between machines on the same segment.

It's easy to see if a network interface supports hardware timestamping, with 'ethtool -T interface' looking for TX_HARDWARE and RX_HARDWARE capabilities:

Time stamping parameters for enp0s31f6:
Capabilities:
 hardware-transmit (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_HARDWARE)
 software-transmit (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SOFTWARE)
 hardware-receive (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_RX_HARDWARE)
 software-receive (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_RX_SOFTWARE)
 software-system-clock (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_SOFTWARE)
 hardware-raw-clock (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_RAW_HARDWARE)
PTP Hardware Clock: 0
Hardware Transmit Timestamp Modes:
 off (HWTSTAMP_TX_OFF)
 on (HWTSTAMP_TX_ON)
Hardware Receive Filter Modes:
 none (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_NONE)
 all (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_ALL)
 ptpv1-l4-sync (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V1_L4_SYNC)
 ptpv1-l4-delay-req (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V1_L4_DELAY_REQ)
 ptpv2-l4-sync (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V2_L4_SYNC)
 ptpv2-l4-delay-req (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V2_L4_DELAY_REQ)
 ptpv2-l2-sync (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V2_L2_SYNC)
 ptpv2-l2-delay-req (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V2_L2_DELAY_REQ)
 ptpv2-event (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V2_EVENT)
 ptpv2-sync (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V2_SYNC)
 ptpv2-delay-req (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V2_DELAY_REQ)

If an interface supports timestamping, that can be enabled in chrony.conf with the hwtimestamping directive:

hwtimestamp eth0
hwtimestamp eth1

It's possible to use * to set hwtimestamp for all interfaces that support it:

hwtimestamp *

When a server supports timestamping you can get the accuracy improvement with the xleave directive:

server doorway.mallards minpoll 2 maxpoll 4 polltarget 30 xleave

Related branches

Changed in maas:
status: New → Triaged
milestone: none → 2.5.x
summary: - Chrony config doesn't reflect hardware timestamping capability
+ [enhancement] Chrony config doesn't reflect hardware timestamping
+ capability
tags: added: rack-proxy track
Changed in maas:
milestone: 2.5.x → 2.5.0
Changed in maas:
assignee: nobody → Mike Pontillo (mpontillo)
Changed in maas:
status: Triaged → Fix Committed
Paul Gear (paulgear)
Changed in ntp-charm:
status: New → Triaged
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
Changed in maas:
importance: Undecided → Medium
Changed in maas:
milestone: 2.5.0 → 2.5.0beta1
Changed in maas:
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Changed in maas:
milestone: 2.5.0beta1 → 2.5.0beta2
status: Fix Released → Fix Committed
Changed in maas:
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
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