ntptrace4 Command

Purpose

Traces a chain of Network Time Protocol (NTP) hosts back to their master time source.

Syntax

ntptrace [ -n ] [ server ]

Description

The ntptrace command determines the time source for the Network Time Protocol (NTP) server and follows the chain of NTP servers back to their master time source. If no arguments are provided, it starts with localhost. Following is an example of the output of the ntptrace command:

% ntptrace
localhost: stratum 4, offset 0.0019529, sync distance 0.144135
server2ozo.com: stratum 2, offset 0.0124263, sync distance 0.115784
usndh.edu: stratum 1, offset 0.0019298, sync distance 0.011993, refid 'WWVB'

On each line, the fields from left to right are host name, host stratum, time offset between that host and the local host as measured by the ntptrace command. This is why it is not always zero for "localhost", host synchronization distance, and (applies only for the stratum-1 servers) the reference clock ID. All times are given in seconds. Note that the stratum is the server hop count to the primary source, while the synchronization distance is the estimated error relative to the primary source. These terms are precisely defined in RFC-1305.

Flags

Parameters

Exit Status

This command returns the following exit values:

Security

Access Control: You must be part of the system group to run this command.

Auditing Events: N/A

Examples

Output similar to the following appears:

            loopback: stratum 5, offset 0.000076, synch distance 0.18291

            ganga08.in.ibm.com: stratum 4, offset -0.001854, synch distance 0.30600

            ganga10.in.ibm.com: stratum 3, offset 0.000251, synch distance 0.30550

            ausgsa.austin.ibm.com: stratum 2, offset -0.010158, synch distance 0.01921

            gsantp.austin.ibm.com: stratum 1, offset 0.016067, synch distance 0.00000, refid
          'GPS'

Files