1*abb0f93cSkardelHP e3000 MPE/iX NTP Hints - May 29, 2001 2*abb0f93cSkardel---------------------------------------- 3*abb0f93cSkardel 4*abb0f93cSkardelNTP was first ported to MPE several years ago, but those diffs were never 5*abb0f93cSkardelsubmitted back to the official NTP distribution. For more information about 6*abb0f93cSkardelthat deprecated port, please see http://www.bixby.org/mark/xntpix.html. 7*abb0f93cSkardel 8*abb0f93cSkardelNTP was re-ported to MPE in May 2001. What follows are hints learned from 9*abb0f93cSkardelworking with NTP 4.0.99k23. For additional information about NTP on MPE, 10*abb0f93cSkardelplease see http://jazz.external.hp.com/src/hp_freeware/ntp/. 11*abb0f93cSkardel 12*abb0f93cSkardelMPE lacks the clock-related APIs expected by NTP, so adjtime(), gettimeofday(), 13*abb0f93cSkardeland settimeofday() all had to be implemented from scratch by calling 14*abb0f93cSkardelprivileged, undocumented internal OS functions. 15*abb0f93cSkardel 16*abb0f93cSkardelUnfortunately the implementation of adjtime() has exposed a sub-second accuracy 17*abb0f93cSkardelbug when slewing the system time. This bug is documented in SR 5003462838, and 18*abb0f93cSkardelexists on all current versions of MPE. It has not been fixed at the time of 19*abb0f93cSkardelthis writing. The adjtime() code may possibly need to be altered if/when this 20*abb0f93cSkardelbug is fixed. 21*abb0f93cSkardel 22*abb0f93cSkardelThis bug has a side-effect whereby the ntpd daemon will screw up the hardware 23*abb0f93cSkardelPDC clock time by many minutes if used for continuous clock adjustments or in 24*abb0f93cSkardelthe one-time -q mode. But note that you can safely run ntpd in order to become 25*abb0f93cSkardela time server if you include "disable ntp" in the ntp.conf configuration file. 26*abb0f93cSkardel 27*abb0f93cSkardelThe one-time clock adjustment functionality of ntpdate and ntp_timeset is not 28*abb0f93cSkardelaffected by this bug side-effect. You can safely use these commands to alter 29*abb0f93cSkardelyour system time with reasonable accuracy. 30*abb0f93cSkardel 31*abb0f93cSkardelThe only reference clock that has been tested on MPE is the local clock. So 32*abb0f93cSkardelbuilding NTP with --disable-all-clocks --enable-LOCAL_CLOCK is strongly 33*abb0f93cSkardelrecommended. 34*abb0f93cSkardel 35*abb0f93cSkardelNTP makes use of Privileged Mode (PM) capability in order to bind to the NTP 36*abb0f93cSkardelnetwork port (123) and to access the low-level clock functions. 37*abb0f93cSkardel 38*abb0f93cSkardelNTP was ported using the gcc compiler. Attempting to use the HP C/iX compiler 39*abb0f93cSkardelis not recommended and has not been tested. 40*abb0f93cSkardel 41*abb0f93cSkardelPlease note that NTP is not an HP product and is NOT supported by HP. The best 42*abb0f93cSkardelplace for asking MPE-specific questions about NTP is the HP3000-L mailing list 43*abb0f93cSkardelat http://raven.utc.edu/Archives/hp3000-l.html or the associated Usenet 44*abb0f93cSkardelnewsgroup of comp.sys.hp.mpe. 45*abb0f93cSkardel 46*abb0f93cSkardelThe original author of this port is: 47*abb0f93cSkardel 48*abb0f93cSkardelMark Bixby 49*abb0f93cSkardelHP CSY MPE Internet & Interoperability Engineer 50*abb0f93cSkardelmark_bixby@hp.com 51