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119c2daa00SOllivier Robert<h3>PPS Clock Discipline</h3>
129c2daa00SOllivier Robert<p>Author: David L. Mills (mills@udel.edu)<br>
139c2daa00SOllivier Robert  Last change:
149c2daa00SOllivier Robert  <!-- #BeginDate format:En2m -->31-Mar-2014  07:46<!-- #EndDate -->
159c2daa00SOllivier Robert  UTC</p>
169c2daa00SOllivier Robert  <hr>
179c2daa00SOllivier Robert<h4>Synopsis</h4>
189c2daa00SOllivier Robert<p>Address: 127.127.22.<i>u</i><br>
199c2daa00SOllivier Robert  Reference ID: <tt>PPS</tt><br>
209c2daa00SOllivier Robert  Driver ID: <tt>PPS</tt><br>
219c2daa00SOllivier Robert  Serial or Parallel Port: <tt>/dev/pps<i>u</i></tt><br>
229c2daa00SOllivier Robert  Requires: PPSAPI signal interface for PPS signal processing.</p>
239c2daa00SOllivier Robert<p>Note: This driver supersedes an older one of the same name. The older driver operated with several somewhat archaic signal interface devices, required intricate configuration and was poorly documented. This driver requires the Pulse per Second API (PPSAPI)<sup>1</sup>.	Note also that the <tt>pps</tt> configuration command has been obsoleted by this driver.</p>
249c2daa00SOllivier Robert<h4>Description</h4>
259c2daa00SOllivier Robert<p>This driver furnishes an interface for the pulse-per-second (PPS) signal produced by a cesium clock, radio clock or related devices. It can be used to augment the serial timecode generated by a GPS receiver, for example. It can be used to remove accumulated jitter and re-time a secondary server when synchronized to a primary server over a congested, wide-area network and before redistributing the time to local clients. The driver includes extensive signal sanity checks and grooming algorithms. A range gate and frequency discriminator reject noise and signals with incorrect frequency. A multiple-stage median filter rejects jitter due to hardware interrupt and operating system latencies. A trimmed-mean algorithm determines the best time samples. With typical workstations and processing loads, the incidental jitter can be reduced to a few microseconds.</p>
269c2daa00SOllivier Robert<p>While this driver can discipline the time and frequency relative to the PPS source, it cannot number the seconds. For this purpose an auxiliary source is required, ordinarily a radio clock operated as a primary reference (stratum 1) source; however, another NTP time server can be used as well. For this purpose, the auxiliary source should be specified as the prefer peer, as described in the <a href="../prefer.html">Mitigation Rules and the <tt>prefer</tt> Keyword</a> page.</p>
279c2daa00SOllivier Robert<p>The driver requires the PPSAPI interface<sup>1</sup>, which is a proposed IETF standard. The interface consists of the <tt>timepps.h</tt> header file and associated kernel support. Support for this interface is included in current versions of Solaris, FreeBSD and Linux and proprietary versions of Tru64 (Alpha) and SunOS. See the <a href="../pps.html">Pulse-per-second (PPS) Signal Interfacing</a> page for further information.</p>
289c2daa00SOllivier Robert<p>The PPS source can be connected via a serial or parallel port, depending on the hardware and operating system. A serial port can be dedicated to the PPS source or shared with another device; however, if dedicated the data leads should not be connected, as noise or unexpected signals can cause <tt>ntpd</tt> to exit.</p>
299c2daa00SOllivier Robert<p>A radio clock is usually connected via a serial port and the PPS source
309c2daa00SOllivier Robert  connected via a level converter to the data carrier detect (DCD)
319c2daa00SOllivier Robert  pin (DB-9 pin 1, DB-25 pin 8) of the same connector. In some systems
329c2daa00SOllivier Robert  where a parallel port and driver are available, the PPS signal can
339c2daa00SOllivier Robert  be connected directly to the ACK pin (DB25 pin 10) of the connector.
349c2daa00SOllivier Robert  Whether the PPS signal is connected via a dedicated port or shared with another
359c2daa00SOllivier Robert  device, the driver opens the device <tt>/dev/pps%d</tt>,
369c2daa00SOllivier Robert  where <tt>%d</tt> is the unit number. As with other drivers, links can be
379c2daa00SOllivier Robert  used to redirect the logical name to the actual physical device.</p>
389c2daa00SOllivier Robert<p>The driver normally operates like any other driver and uses the same mitigation
399c2daa00SOllivier Robert  algorithms and PLL/FLL clock discipline incorporated in the daemon.
409c2daa00SOllivier Robert  If kernel PLL/FLL support is available, the kernel PLL/FLL clock
419c2daa00SOllivier Robert  discipline can be used instead. The default behavior is not to use
429c2daa00SOllivier Robert  the kernel PPS clock discipline, even if present. This driver incorporates
439c2daa00SOllivier Robert  a good deal of signal processing to reduce jitter using the median
449c2daa00SOllivier Robert  filter algorithm in the driver. As the result, performance
459c2daa00SOllivier Robert  with <tt>minpoll</tt> configured at  4 (16s) is generally
469c2daa00SOllivier Robert  better than the kernel PPS discipline. However, fudge flag 3 can
479c2daa00SOllivier Robert  be used to enable the kernel PPS discipline if necessary.</p>
489c2daa00SOllivier Robert<p>This driver
499c2daa00SOllivier Robert  is enabled only under one of two conditions (a) a prefer peer other than
509c2daa00SOllivier Robert  this  driver is among the survivors of the mitigation algorithms or (b)
519c2daa00SOllivier Robert  there are no survivors and the <tt>minsane</tt> option
529c2daa00SOllivier Robert  of the <tt>tos</tt> command is 0. The prefer peer designates another source
539c2daa00SOllivier Robert  that can reliably number the seconds when available . However, if no
549c2daa00SOllivier Robert  sources are available, the system clock continues to be disciplined by
559c2daa00SOllivier Robert  the PPS driver on an indefinite basis.</p>
569c2daa00SOllivier Robert<p>A scenario where the latter behavior can be most useful is a planetary orbiter
57  fleet, for instance in the vicinity of Mars, where contact between orbiters
58  and Earth only one or two times per Sol (Mars day). These orbiters have a
59  precise timing reference based on an Ultra Stable Oscillator (USO) with accuracy
60  in the order of a Cesium oscillator. A PPS signal is derived from the USO
61  and can be disciplined from Earth on rare occasion or from another orbiter
62  via NTP. In the above scenario the PPS signal disciplines the spacecraft clock
63  between NTP updates.</p>
64<p>In a similar scenario a PPS signal can be used to discipline the clock between
65  updates produced by the modem driver. This would provide precise synchronization
66  without needing the Internet at all.</p>
67<h4>Fudge Factors</h4>
68<dl>
69  <dt><tt>time1 <i>time</i></tt></dt>
70  <dd>Specifies the time offset calibration factor, in seconds and fraction, with default 0.0.</dd>
71  <dt><tt>time2 <i>time</i></tt></dt>
72  <dd>Not used by this driver.</dd>
73  <dt><tt>stratum <i>number</i></tt></dt>
74  <dd>Specifies the driver stratum, in decimal from 0 to 15, with default 0.</dd>
75  <dt><tt>refid <i>string</i></tt></dt>
76  <dd>Specifies the driver reference identifier, an ASCII string from one to four characters, with default <tt>PPS</tt>.</dd>
77  <dt><tt>flag1 0 | 1</tt></dt>
78  <dd>Not used by this driver.</dd>
79  <dt><tt>flag2 0 | 1</tt></dt>
80  <dd>Specifies PPS  capture on the rising (assert) pulse edge if 0 (default) or falling
81    (clear) pulse edge if 1.  Not used under Windows - if the special <tt>serialpps.sys</tt> serial port driver is installed then the leading edge will <i>always</i> be used.</dd>
82  <dt><tt>flag3 0 | 1</tt></dt>
83  <dd>Controls the kernel PPS discipline: 0 for disable (default), 1 for enable.  Not used under Windows - if the special <tt>serialpps.sys</tt> serial port driver is used then kernel PPS will be available and used.</dd>
84  <dt><tt>flag4 0 | 1</tt></dt>
85  <dd>Record a timestamp once for each second if 1. Useful for constructing
86    Allan deviation plots.</dd>
87  .
88</dl>
89<h4>Additional Information</h4>
90<p><a href="../refclock.html">Reference Clock Drivers</a></p>
91<p>Reference</p>
92<ol>
93  <li>Mogul, J., D. Mills, J. Brittenson, J. Stone and U. Windl. Pulse-per-second API for Unix-like operating systems, version 1. Request for Comments RFC-2783, Internet Engineering Task Force, March 2000, 31 pp.</li>
94</ol>
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