ntpMerlin ntpMerlin v3.x

[cplay]

Hi @Jack Yaz - installed this today.

few questions:

1. do I need to enable ntp server in administration settings for ntpmerlin to work with either ntpd or chrony?

2. Ntpd vs chrony? opinion?

3. have I missed any steps (currently I don’t have ntp server enable in time settings in administration)

 

[EmeraldDeer]

Hi @Jack Yaz - installed this today.

few questions:

1. do I need to enable ntp server in administration settings for ntpmerlin to work with either ntpd or chrony?

2. Ntpd vs chrony? opinion?

3. have I missed any steps (currently I don’t have ntp server enable in time settings in administration)

1. No, that is the firmware NTP server which is different from ntpMerlin NTP server or ntpMerlin chrony server
2. Chrony
3. I don't know, have you? What is the output of the following three commands?

chronyc tracking
chronyc sources
chronyc sourcestats

 

[maghuro]

I think latest merlin beta2 broke ntpmerlin (at least chrony).

Since I've installed it, chrony doesn't work. It has nothing on "sources".

Reinstalled and nothing

 

[Jack Yaz]

I think latest merlin beta2 broke ntpmerlin (at least chrony).

Since I've installed it, chrony doesn't work. It has nothing on "sources".

Reinstalled and nothing

what have you got set for your servers in chrony.conf?

 

[maghuro]

what have you got set for your servers in chrony.conf?

pool ntp1.tecnico.ulisboa.pt iburst
pool ntp2.tecnico.ulisboa.pt iburst

 

[Jack Yaz]

pool ntp1.tecnico.ulisboa.pt iburst
pool ntp2.tecnico.ulisboa.pt iburst

ok, those should be fine. can you run

chronyc tracking
chronyc sources
ps | grep ntp
ps | grep chrony

 

[maghuro]

ok, those should be fine. can you run

chronyc tracking
chronyc sources
ps | grep ntp
ps | grep chrony

Better give you screenshot, copy/paste from mob phone is crapy

 

[pdc]

Just FYI, ntpMerlin + chrony is working for me on beta2 (on AC86) . I did have it set up prior to moving to 386 but so far so good.

@maghuro, what have you got running for your prompts? Is that "oh my zsh"? Very nice!

You could try pt.pool.ntp.org (see https://www.ntppool.org/zone/europe) and see if that helps. Currently you are not connected to any time servers.

 

[Jack Yaz]

Better give you screenshot, copy/paste from mob phone is crapy

View attachment 32384

chronyc sources doesnt have your servers listed. i just tested them and they're up. try restarting chrony and check chronyc sources again?

 

[Jack Yaz]

Hotfix pushed to fix an issue with cookies in the WebUI, option uf needed

 

[maghuro]

chronyc sources doesnt have your servers listed. i just tested them and they're up. try restarting chrony and check chronyc sources again?

Done. Even rebooted the router a couple of times.

Added new servers same result.
I even manually deleted chrony from opkg and installed again and nothing...

 

[maghuro]

Hotfix pushed to fix an issue with cookies in the WebUI, option uf needed

Was that on conmon?

 

[pdc]

Done. Even rebooted the router a couple of times.

Added new servers same result.
I even manually deleted chrony from opkg and installed again and nothing...

How frustrating! I don't suppose there are any clues in the log files? I remember some people had problems with "NTS" servers (secure ntp) since entware chrony doesn't support that, but you'd see an error in the log, and you'd have to specify nts in the server line.

It looks like chrony is running, but for some reason is not connecting to any sources. I suppose another thing to try is an IP address just to make sure there are no DNS problems.

There is also this stratum 2 server in Portugal: http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Servers/PublicTimeServer000405
(ntp04.oal.ul.pt / 194.117.9.136)

'chronyc activity' might help to show how many sources are online or if there are problems.

 

[joe scian]

chronyc sources doesnt have your servers listed. i just tested them and they're up. try restarting chrony and check chronyc sources again?

Jack

I found that enabling

! pool time.cloudflare.com iburst nts

by uncommenting in the default chrony.conf causes issues as follows:

joescian@RT-AC86U-6440:/tmp/home/root# chronyc tracking
Reference ID    : 7F7F0101 ()
Stratum         : 10
Ref time (UTC)  : Wed Mar 24 01:48:29 2021
System time     : 0.000000000 seconds slow of NTP time
Last offset     : +0.000000000 seconds
RMS offset      : 0.000000000 seconds
Frequency       : 4.719 ppm slow
Residual freq   : +0.000 ppm
Skew            : 0.000 ppm
Root delay      : 0.000000000 seconds
Root dispersion : 0.000000000 seconds
Update interval : 0.0 seconds
Leap status     : Normal

whereas if I leave ! pool time.cloudfare.com iburst nts commented out I get the proper readings below. " ! pool time.cloudflare.com iburst nts" appears as the first server in the default chrony.conf file that is potentially uncommented by users.

joescian@RT-AC86U-6440:/tmp/home/root# chronyc tracking
Reference ID    : A29FC87B (time.cloudflare.com)
Stratum         : 4
Ref time (UTC)  : Wed Mar 24 01:52:34 2021
System time     : 0.000012111 seconds slow of NTP time
Last offset     : -0.000002640 seconds
RMS offset      : 0.000047903 seconds
Frequency       : 5.472 ppm slow
Residual freq   : -0.013 ppm
Skew            : 0.377 ppm
Root delay      : 0.044298831 seconds
Root dispersion : 0.001432971 seconds
Update interval : 2.1 seconds
Leap status     : Normal

List of servers configured in chrony.conf which occur after

! pool time.cloudfare.com iburst nts

server 0.au.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 1.au.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 2.au.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 3.au.pool.ntp.org iburst

pool pool.ntp.org iburst

joescian@RT-AC86U-6440:/tmp/home/root# chronyc sources
MS Name/IP address         Stratum Poll Reach LastRx Last sample
===============================================================================
^+ warrane.connect.com.au        3   6    17     0   -111us[ -111us] +/-   55ms
^- fe1-1.mel-ii.bdr1.mazzan>     2   6    17     1  +3708us[+3708us] +/-   69ms
^- ec2-13-55-50-68.ap-south>     3   6     7     2  +2827us[+2827us] +/-   87ms
^- bitburger.simonrumble.com     1   6     7     2  +1625us[+1625us] +/-   21ms
^- ntp3.ds.network               2   6     7     2   -895us[ -895us] +/-  148ms
^* time.cloudflare.com           3   6     7     2   -129us[ -132us] +/-   24ms
^- pauseq4vntp1.datamossa.io     2   6    17     1    +79us[  +79us] +/-   50ms
^- 220-158-215-20.broadband>     2   6    17     1   -987us[ -987us] +/-   35ms

PS - I found the error in the default chrony.conf file for the pooled time.cloudflare.com servers.  Its the term nts after iburst - delete nts and all is well with the cloudflare pool servers for chrony!!!!

Presumably Chrony 4.0 client does NOT support NTS protocol. Therefore this line should be deleted from chrony.conf default to avoid enabling it by unsuspecting users.
I only realised this after my GUI Graphs were not updating in NTPMerlin when Chrony was enabled and Drift was stuck on 1 value.

 

[maghuro]

Update!

The problem is that for no reason chrony started only accepting IPs in the config file.
Look at the screenshots

Any thoughts? This is odd (@L&LD did you miss my strange unexplainable problems?)

 

[joe scian]

Update!

The problem is that for no reason chrony started only accepting IPs in the config file.
Look at the screenshots

View attachment 32394View attachment 32395


Any thoughts? This is odd (@L&LD did you miss my strange unexplainable problems?)

2 of your ip addresses are bad ip addresses and the other two are not pingable. The only one thats pingable is 194.117.9.136.Thats why you have 1 source online and 4 with unknown address.

pool pt.pool.ntp.org is a pool of servers as follows and you can see that ntp2.technico.ulisboa.pt is unreachable:-

MS Name/IP address         Stratum Poll Reach LastRx Last sample
===============================================================================
^+ ntp21.kashra-server.com       2   6    35    50  +9480ns[+9480ns] +/-  613ms
^? ntp2.tecnico.ulisboa.pt       0   7     0     -     +0ns[   +0ns] +/-    0ns
^- ntp22.kashra-server.com       2   6   251    47  +9174ns[+9174ns] +/-  613ms
^* ftp.claranet.pt               3   6    17    54   -103us[ -729us] +/-  676ms

AND previously above you mention you have these two configured

pool ntp1.tecnico.ulisboa.pt iburst
pool ntp2.tecnico.ulisboa.pt iburst

Thats wrong - try this below and it will work.

ntp1.tecnico.ulisboa.pt iburst
ntp2.tecnico.ulisboa.pt iburst - this ones offline

 

[Jack Yaz]

Jack

I found that enabling

! pool time.cloudflare.com iburst nts

by uncommenting in the default chrony.conf causes issues as follows:

joescian@RT-AC86U-6440:/tmp/home/root# chronyc tracking
Reference ID    : 7F7F0101 ()
Stratum         : 10
Ref time (UTC)  : Wed Mar 24 01:48:29 2021
System time     : 0.000000000 seconds slow of NTP time
Last offset     : +0.000000000 seconds
RMS offset      : 0.000000000 seconds
Frequency       : 4.719 ppm slow
Residual freq   : +0.000 ppm
Skew            : 0.000 ppm
Root delay      : 0.000000000 seconds
Root dispersion : 0.000000000 seconds
Update interval : 0.0 seconds
Leap status     : Normal

whereas if I leave ! pool time.cloudfare.com iburst nts commented out I get the proper readings below. " ! pool time.cloudflare.com iburst nts" appears as the first server in the default chrony.conf file that is potentially uncommented by users.

joescian@RT-AC86U-6440:/tmp/home/root# chronyc tracking
Reference ID    : A29FC87B (time.cloudflare.com)
Stratum         : 4
Ref time (UTC)  : Wed Mar 24 01:52:34 2021
System time     : 0.000012111 seconds slow of NTP time
Last offset     : -0.000002640 seconds
RMS offset      : 0.000047903 seconds
Frequency       : 5.472 ppm slow
Residual freq   : -0.013 ppm
Skew            : 0.377 ppm
Root delay      : 0.044298831 seconds
Root dispersion : 0.001432971 seconds
Update interval : 2.1 seconds
Leap status     : Normal

List of servers configured in chrony.conf which occur after

! pool time.cloudfare.com iburst nts

server 0.au.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 1.au.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 2.au.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 3.au.pool.ntp.org iburst

pool pool.ntp.org iburst

joescian@RT-AC86U-6440:/tmp/home/root# chronyc sources
MS Name/IP address         Stratum Poll Reach LastRx Last sample
===============================================================================
^+ warrane.connect.com.au        3   6    17     0   -111us[ -111us] +/-   55ms
^- fe1-1.mel-ii.bdr1.mazzan>     2   6    17     1  +3708us[+3708us] +/-   69ms
^- ec2-13-55-50-68.ap-south>     3   6     7     2  +2827us[+2827us] +/-   87ms
^- bitburger.simonrumble.com     1   6     7     2  +1625us[+1625us] +/-   21ms
^- ntp3.ds.network               2   6     7     2   -895us[ -895us] +/-  148ms
^* time.cloudflare.com           3   6     7     2   -129us[ -132us] +/-   24ms
^- pauseq4vntp1.datamossa.io     2   6    17     1    +79us[  +79us] +/-   50ms
^- 220-158-215-20.broadband>     2   6    17     1   -987us[ -987us] +/-   35ms

PS - I found the error in the default chrony.conf file for the pooled time.cloudflare.com servers.  Its the term nts after iburst - delete nts and all is well with the cloudflare pool servers for chrony!!!!

Presumably Chrony 4.0 client does NOT support NTS protocol. Therefore this line should be deleted from chrony.conf default to avoid enabling it by unsuspecting users.
I only realised this after my GUI Graphs were not updating in NTPMerlin when Chrony was enabled and Drift was stuck on 1 value.

It was left in there because nts support was meant to be coming in the latest raft of entware updates. That's proven to not be the case

 

[maghuro]

2 of your ip addresses are bad ip addresses and the other two are not pingable. The only one thats pingable is 194.117.9.136.Thats why you have 1 source online and 4 with unknown address.

pool pt.pool.ntp.org is a pool of servers as follows and you can see that ntp2.technico.ulisboa.pt is unreachable:-

MS Name/IP address         Stratum Poll Reach LastRx Last sample
===============================================================================
^+ ntp21.kashra-server.com       2   6    35    50  +9480ns[+9480ns] +/-  613ms
^? ntp2.tecnico.ulisboa.pt       0   7     0     -     +0ns[   +0ns] +/-    0ns
^- ntp22.kashra-server.com       2   6   251    47  +9174ns[+9174ns] +/-  613ms
^* ftp.claranet.pt               3   6    17    54   -103us[ -729us] +/-  676ms

AND previously above you mention you have these two configured

pool ntp1.tecnico.ulisboa.pt iburst
pool ntp2.tecnico.ulisboa.pt iburst

Thats wrong - try this below and it will work.

ntp1.tecnico.ulisboa.pt iburst
ntp2.tecnico.ulisboa.pt iburst - this ones offline

It doesn't work.

I can assure those 4 server are up.
Plus I've been always using the 4 this way and they always work, they stopped working this way I don't know why:

The problem is my chrony stopped accepting domain names, only ips.

 

[Jack Yaz]

It doesn't work.
View attachment 32400View attachment 32399
I can assure those 4 server are up.
Plus I've been always using the 4 this way and they always work, they stopped working this way I don't know why:
View attachment 32401


The problem is my chrony stopped accepting domain names, only ips.

can you resolve them using nslookup on the router itself?

 

[maghuro]

can you resolve them using nslookup on the router itself?

Affirmative.