xref: /freebsd/usr.sbin/ntp/doc/ntptrace.8 (revision 6780ab54325a71e7e70112b11657973edde8655e)
1.\"
2.\" $FreeBSD$
3.\"
4.Dd January 6, 2000
5.Dt NTPTRACE 8
6.Os
7.Sh NAME
8.Nm ntptrace
9.Nd "trace a chain of NTP servers back to the primary source"
10.Sh SYNOPSIS
11.Nm
12.Op Fl vdn
13.Op Fl r Ar retries
14.Op Fl t Ar timeout
15.Op Ar server
16.Sh DESCRIPTION
17The
18.Nm
19utility determines where a given Network Time Protocol (NTP) server gets
20its time from, and follows the chain of NTP servers back to their
21master time source.
22If given no arguments, it starts with
23.Dq localhost .
24.Pp
25Here is an example of the output from
26.Nm :
27.Bd -literal
28% ntptrace
29localhost: stratum 4, offset 0.0019529, synch distance 0.144135
30server2ozo.com: stratum 2, offset 0.0124263, synch distance 0.115784
31usndh.edu: stratum 1, offset 0.0019298, synch distance 0.011993, refid 'WWVB'
32.Ed
33.Pp
34On each line, the fields are (left to right): the host name, the
35host stratum,
36the time offset between that host and the local host
37(as measured by
38.Nm ;
39this is why it is not always zero for
40.Dq localhost ) ,
41the host
42synchronization distance,
43and (only for stratum-1 servers) the reference clock ID.  All times
44are given in seconds.
45Note that the stratum is the server hop count to the primary source,
46while the synchronization distance is the estimated error
47relative to the primary source.
48These terms are precisely defined in RFC 1305.
49.Pp
50The following options are available:
51.Bl -tag -width indent
52.It Fl d
53Turn on some debugging output.
54.It Fl n
55Turn off the printing of host names; instead, host IP addresses
56are given.  This may be necessary if a nameserver is down.
57.It Fl r Ar retries
58Set the number of retransmission attempts for each host; the default is 5.
59.It Fl t Ar timeout
60Set the retransmission timeout (in seconds); the default is 2.
61.It Fl v
62Print verbose information about the NTP servers.
63.El
64.Sh SEE ALSO
65.Xr ntpd 8 ,
66.Xr ntpdc 8
67.Rs
68.%A D L Mills
69.%T Network Time Protocol (Version 3)
70.%O RFC1305
71.Re
72.Sh BUGS
73This program makes no attempt to improve accuracy by doing multiple
74samples.
75