calc_tickadj User’s Manual

calc_tickadj User’s Manual

This document describes the use of the NTP Project’s calc_tickadj program. This document applies to version 4.2.8p13 of calc_tickadj.

Short Table of Contents

1 Invoking calc_tickadj

The calc_tickadj script uses provided ntp drift file to generate optimal tick value. Generally, ntpd can do better job if the drift value is the smallest possible number.

The example output of

$ ./calc_tickadj
81.699 (drift)
9999 usec; 9999779 nsec
$ cat /etc/ntp/drift
-23.159

means the following. If tick on that box is 10,000, by making the value 9999 we’ll shift the box from its current drift of -23.159 to a drift of 81.699, and in doing so we’ll speed the clock up a little every second instead of slowing the clock down a little.

If ’tick’ on that box is 10,000,000 then by setting it to 9999779 the drift value will be somewhere around 0.0.

calc_tickadj tries to determine the the tick value by using tickadj program from ntp package. If this doesn’t work you can specify current tick manually on command line.

This section was generated by AutoGen, using the agtexi-cmd template and the option descriptions for the calc_tickadj program.

1.1 calc_tickadj help/usage (--help)

This is the automatically generated usage text for calc_tickadj.

The text printed is the same whether selected with the help option (--help) or the more-help option (--more-help). more-help will print the usage text by passing it through a pager program. more-help is disabled on platforms without a working fork(2) function. The PAGER environment variable is used to select the program, defaulting to more. Both will exit with a status code of 0.

calc_tickadj - Calculates "optimal" value for tick given ntp drift file. - Ver. 4.2.7p467
USAGE: calc_tickadj [ -<flag> [<val>] | --<name>[{=| }<val>] ]... 

    -d, --drift-file=str         Ntp drift file to use
    -t, --tick=num               Tick value of this host
    -?, --help                   Display usage information and exit
        --more-help              Pass the extended usage text through a pager

Options are specified by doubled hyphens and their name or by a single
hyphen and the flag character.

1.1.1 drift-file option (-d)

This is the “ntp drift file to use” option. This option takes a string argument. Use the specified drift file for calculations

1.1.2 tick option (-t)

This is the “tick value of this host” option. This option takes a number argument. The current tick which to adjustment will be calculated

1.1.3 calc_tickadj exit status

One of the following exit values will be returned:

‘0 (EXIT_SUCCESS)’

Successful program execution.

‘1 (EXIT_FAILURE)’

The operation failed or the command syntax was not valid.