Provided by: ntp_4.2.8p12+dfsg-3ubuntu4.20.04.1_amd64 
NAME
ntpdc — vendor-specific NTPD control program
SYNOPSIS
ntpdc [-flags] [-flag [value]] [--option-name[[=| ]value]] [ host ...]
DESCRIPTION
ntpdc is deprecated. Please use ntpq(1) instead - it can do everything ntpdc used to do,
and it does so using a much more sane interface.
ntpdc is a utility program used to query ntpd(8) about its current state and to request
changes in that state. It uses NTP mode 7 control message formats described in the source
code. The program may be run either in interactive mode or controlled using command line
arguments. Extensive state and statistics information is available through the ntpdc
interface. In addition, nearly all the configuration options which can be specified at
startup using ntpd's configuration file may also be specified at run time using ntpdc.
OPTIONS
-4, --ipv4
Force IPv4 DNS name resolution. This option must not appear in combination with any
of the following options: ipv6.
Force DNS resolution of following host names on the command line to the IPv4
namespace.
-6, --ipv6
Force IPv6 DNS name resolution. This option must not appear in combination with any
of the following options: ipv4.
Force DNS resolution of following host names on the command line to the IPv6
namespace.
-c cmd, --command=cmd
run a command and exit. This option may appear an unlimited number of times.
The following argument is interpreted as an interactive format command and is added
to the list of commands to be executed on the specified host(s).
-d, --debug-level
Increase debug verbosity level. This option may appear an unlimited number of
times.
-D number, --set-debug-level=number
Set the debug verbosity level. This option may appear an unlimited number of times.
This option takes an integer number as its argument.
-i, --interactive
Force ntpq to operate in interactive mode. This option must not appear in
combination with any of the following options: command, listpeers, peers, showpeers.
Force ntpq to operate in interactive mode. Prompts will be written to the standard
output and commands read from the standard input.
-l, --listpeers
Print a list of the peers. This option must not appear in combination with any of
the following options: command.
Print a list of the peers known to the server as well as a summary of their state.
This is equivalent to the 'listpeers' interactive command.
-n, --numeric
numeric host addresses.
Output all host addresses in dotted-quad numeric format rather than converting to
the canonical host names.
-p, --peers
Print a list of the peers. This option must not appear in combination with any of
the following options: command.
Print a list of the peers known to the server as well as a summary of their state.
This is equivalent to the 'peers' interactive command.
-s, --showpeers
Show a list of the peers. This option must not appear in combination with any of
the following options: command.
Print a list of the peers known to the server as well as a summary of their state.
This is equivalent to the 'dmpeers' interactive command.
-?, --help
Display usage information and exit.
-!, --more-help
Pass the extended usage information through a pager.
-> [cfgfile], --save-opts [=cfgfile]
Save the option state to cfgfile. The default is the last configuration file listed
in the OPTION PRESETS section, below. The command will exit after updating the
config file.
-< cfgfile, --load-opts=cfgfile, --no-load-opts
Load options from cfgfile. The no-load-opts form will disable the loading of
earlier config/rc/ini files. --no-load-opts is handled early, out of order.
--version [{v|c|n}]
Output version of program and exit. The default mode is `v', a simple version. The
`c' mode will print copyright information and `n' will print the full copyright
notice.
OPTION PRESETS
Any option that is not marked as not presettable may be preset by loading values from
configuration ("RC" or ".INI") file(s) and values from environment variables named:
NTPDC_<option-name> or NTPDC
The environmental presets take precedence (are processed later than) the configuration
files. The homerc files are "$HOME", and ".". If any of these are directories, then the
file .ntprc is searched for within those directories.
USAGE
If one or more request options are included on the command line when ntpdc is executed, each
of the requests will be sent to the NTP servers running on each of the hosts given as
command line arguments, or on localhost by default. If no request options are given, ntpdc
will attempt to read commands from the standard input and execute these on the NTP server
running on the first host given on the command line, again defaulting to localhost when no
other host is specified. The ntpdc utility will prompt for commands if the standard input
is a terminal device.
The ntpdc utility uses NTP mode 7 packets to communicate with the NTP server, and hence can
be used to query any compatible server on the network which permits it. Note that since NTP
is a UDP protocol this communication will be somewhat unreliable, especially over large
distances in terms of network topology. The ntpdc utility makes no attempt to retransmit
requests, and will time requests out if the remote host is not heard from within a suitable
timeout time.
The operation of ntpdc are specific to the particular implementation of the ntpd(8) daemon
and can be expected to work only with this and maybe some previous versions of the daemon.
Requests from a remote ntpdc utility which affect the state of the local server must be
authenticated, which requires both the remote program and local server share a common key
and key identifier.
Note that in contexts where a host name is expected, a -4 qualifier preceding the host name
forces DNS resolution to the IPv4 namespace, while a -6 qualifier forces DNS resolution to
the IPv6 namespace. Specifying a command line option other than -i or -n will cause the
specified query (queries) to be sent to the indicated host(s) immediately. Otherwise, ntpdc
will attempt to read interactive format commands from the standard input.
Interactive Commands
Interactive format commands consist of a keyword followed by zero to four arguments. Only
enough characters of the full keyword to uniquely identify the command need be typed. The
output of a command is normally sent to the standard output, but optionally the output of
individual commands may be sent to a file by appending a ‘>’, followed by a file name, to
the command line.
A number of interactive format commands are executed entirely within the ntpdc utility
itself and do not result in NTP mode 7 requests being sent to a server. These are described
following.
? command_keyword
help command_keyword
A ‘?’ will print a list of all the command keywords known to this incarnation of
ntpdc. A ‘?’ followed by a command keyword will print function and usage
information about the command. This command is probably a better source of
information about ntpq(1) than this manual page.
delay milliseconds
Specify a time interval to be added to timestamps included in requests which require
authentication. This is used to enable (unreliable) server reconfiguration over
long delay network paths or between machines whose clocks are unsynchronized.
Actually the server does not now require timestamps in authenticated requests, so
this command may be obsolete.
host hostname
Set the host to which future queries will be sent. Hostname may be either a host
name or a numeric address.
hostnames [yes | no]
If yes is specified, host names are printed in information displays. If no is
specified, numeric addresses are printed instead. The default is yes, unless
modified using the command line -n switch.
keyid keyid
This command allows the specification of a key number to be used to authenticate
configuration requests. This must correspond to a key number the server has been
configured to use for this purpose.
quit Exit ntpdc.
passwd This command prompts you to type in a password (which will not be echoed) which will
be used to authenticate configuration requests. The password must correspond to the
key configured for use by the NTP server for this purpose if such requests are to be
successful.
timeout milliseconds
Specify a timeout period for responses to server queries. The default is about 8000
milliseconds. Note that since ntpdc retries each query once after a timeout, the
total waiting time for a timeout will be twice the timeout value set.
Control Message Commands
Query commands result in NTP mode 7 packets containing requests for information being sent
to the server. These are read-only commands in that they make no modification of the server
configuration state.
listpeers
Obtains and prints a brief list of the peers for which the server is maintaining
state. These should include all configured peer associations as well as those peers
whose stratum is such that they are considered by the server to be possible future
synchronization candidates.
peers Obtains a list of peers for which the server is maintaining state, along with a
summary of that state. Summary information includes the address of the remote peer,
the local interface address (0.0.0.0 if a local address has yet to be determined),
the stratum of the remote peer (a stratum of 16 indicates the remote peer is
unsynchronized), the polling interval, in seconds, the reachability register, in
octal, and the current estimated delay, offset and dispersion of the peer, all in
seconds.
The character in the left margin indicates the mode this peer entry is operating in.
A ‘+’ denotes symmetric active, a ‘-’ indicates symmetric passive, a ‘=’ means the
remote server is being polled in client mode, a ‘^’ indicates that the server is
broadcasting to this address, a ‘~’ denotes that the remote peer is sending
broadcasts and a ‘~’ denotes that the remote peer is sending broadcasts and a ‘*’
marks the peer the server is currently synchronizing to.
The contents of the host field may be one of four forms. It may be a host name, an
IP address, a reference clock implementation name with its parameter or
REFCLK(implementation_number, parameter). On hostnames no only IP-addresses will be
displayed.
dmpeers
A slightly different peer summary list. Identical to the output of the peers
command, except for the character in the leftmost column. Characters only appear
beside peers which were included in the final stage of the clock selection
algorithm. A ‘.’ indicates that this peer was cast off in the falseticker
detection, while a ‘+’ indicates that the peer made it through. A ‘*’ denotes the
peer the server is currently synchronizing with.
showpeer peer_address [...]
Shows a detailed display of the current peer variables for one or more peers. Most
of these values are described in the NTP Version 2 specification.
pstats peer_address [...]
Show per-peer statistic counters associated with the specified peer(s).
clockstat clock_peer_address [...]
Obtain and print information concerning a peer clock. The values obtained provide
information on the setting of fudge factors and other clock performance information.
kerninfo
Obtain and print kernel phase-lock loop operating parameters. This information is
available only if the kernel has been specially modified for a precision timekeeping
function.
loopinfo [oneline | multiline]
Print the values of selected loop filter variables. The loop filter is the part of
NTP which deals with adjusting the local system clock. The ‘offset’ is the last
offset given to the loop filter by the packet processing code. The ‘frequency’ is
the frequency error of the local clock in parts-per-million (ppm). The ‘time_const’
controls the stiffness of the phase-lock loop and thus the speed at which it can
adapt to oscillator drift. The ‘watchdog timer’ value is the number of seconds
which have elapsed since the last sample offset was given to the loop filter. The
oneline and multiline options specify the format in which this information is to be
printed, with multiline as the default.
sysinfo
Print a variety of system state variables, i.e., state related to the local server.
All except the last four lines are described in the NTP Version 3 specification,
RFC-1305.
The ‘system flags’ show various system flags, some of which can be set and cleared
by the enable and disable configuration commands, respectively. These are the auth,
bclient, monitor, pll, pps and stats flags. See the ntpd(8) documentation for the
meaning of these flags. There are two additional flags which are read only, the
kernel_pll and kernel_pps. These flags indicate the synchronization status when the
precision time kernel modifications are in use. The ‘kernel_pll’ indicates that the
local clock is being disciplined by the kernel, while the ‘kernel_pps’ indicates the
kernel discipline is provided by the PPS signal.
The ‘stability’ is the residual frequency error remaining after the system frequency
correction is applied and is intended for maintenance and debugging. In most
architectures, this value will initially decrease from as high as 500 ppm to a
nominal value in the range .01 to 0.1 ppm. If it remains high for some time after
starting the daemon, something may be wrong with the local clock, or the value of
the kernel variable kern.clockrate.tick may be incorrect.
The ‘broadcastdelay’ shows the default broadcast delay, as set by the broadcastdelay
configuration command.
The ‘authdelay’ shows the default authentication delay, as set by the authdelay
configuration command.
sysstats
Print statistics counters maintained in the protocol module.
memstats
Print statistics counters related to memory allocation code.
iostats
Print statistics counters maintained in the input-output module.
timerstats
Print statistics counters maintained in the timer/event queue support code.
reslist
Obtain and print the server's restriction list. This list is (usually) printed in
sorted order and may help to understand how the restrictions are applied.
monlist [version]
Obtain and print traffic counts collected and maintained by the monitor facility.
The version number should not normally need to be specified.
clkbug clock_peer_address [...]
Obtain debugging information for a reference clock driver. This information is
provided only by some clock drivers and is mostly undecodable without a copy of the
driver source in hand.
Runtime Configuration Requests
All requests which cause state changes in the server are authenticated by the server using a
configured NTP key (the facility can also be disabled by the server by not configuring a
key). The key number and the corresponding key must also be made known to ntpdc. This can
be done using the keyid and passwd commands, the latter of which will prompt at the terminal
for a password to use as the encryption key. You will also be prompted automatically for
both the key number and password the first time a command which would result in an
authenticated request to the server is given. Authentication not only provides verification
that the requester has permission to make such changes, but also gives an extra degree of
protection again transmission errors.
Authenticated requests always include a timestamp in the packet data, which is included in
the computation of the authentication code. This timestamp is compared by the server to its
receive time stamp. If they differ by more than a small amount the request is rejected.
This is done for two reasons. First, it makes simple replay attacks on the server, by
someone who might be able to overhear traffic on your LAN, much more difficult. Second, it
makes it more difficult to request configuration changes to your server from topologically
remote hosts. While the reconfiguration facility will work well with a server on the local
host, and may work adequately between time-synchronized hosts on the same LAN, it will work
very poorly for more distant hosts. As such, if reasonable passwords are chosen, care is
taken in the distribution and protection of keys and appropriate source address restrictions
are applied, the run time reconfiguration facility should provide an adequate level of
security.
The following commands all make authenticated requests.
addpeer peer_address [keyid] [version] [prefer]
Add a configured peer association at the given address and operating in symmetric
active mode. Note that an existing association with the same peer may be deleted
when this command is executed, or may simply be converted to conform to the new
configuration, as appropriate. If the optional keyid is a nonzero integer, all
outgoing packets to the remote server will have an authentication field attached
encrypted with this key. If the value is 0 (or not given) no authentication will be
done. The version can be 1, 2 or 3 and defaults to 3. The prefer keyword indicates
a preferred peer (and thus will be used primarily for clock synchronisation if
possible). The preferred peer also determines the validity of the PPS signal - if
the preferred peer is suitable for synchronisation so is the PPS signal.
addserver peer_address [keyid] [version] [prefer]
Identical to the addpeer command, except that the operating mode is client.
broadcast peer_address [keyid] [version] [prefer]
Identical to the addpeer command, except that the operating mode is broadcast. In
this case a valid key identifier and key are required. The peer_address parameter
can be the broadcast address of the local network or a multicast group address
assigned to NTP. If a multicast address, a multicast-capable kernel is required.
unconfig peer_address [...]
This command causes the configured bit to be removed from the specified peer(s). In
many cases this will cause the peer association to be deleted. When appropriate,
however, the association may persist in an unconfigured mode if the remote peer is
willing to continue on in this fashion.
fudge peer_address [time1] [time2] [stratum] [refid]
This command provides a way to set certain data for a reference clock. See the
source listing for further information.
enable [auth | bclient | calibrate | kernel | monitor | ntp | pps | stats]
disable [auth | bclient | calibrate | kernel | monitor | ntp | pps | stats]
These commands operate in the same way as the enable and disable configuration file
commands of ntpd(8).
auth Enables the server to synchronize with unconfigured peers only if the peer
has been correctly authenticated using either public key or private key
cryptography. The default for this flag is enable.
bclient
Enables the server to listen for a message from a broadcast or multicast
server, as in the multicastclient command with default address. The default
for this flag is disable.
calibrate
Enables the calibrate feature for reference clocks. The default for this
flag is disable.
kernel Enables the kernel time discipline, if available. The default for this flag
is enable if support is available, otherwise disable.
monitor
Enables the monitoring facility. See the documentation here about the
monlist command or further information. The default for this flag is
enable.
ntp Enables time and frequency discipline. In effect, this switch opens and
closes the feedback loop, which is useful for testing. The default for this
flag is enable.
pps Enables the pulse-per-second (PPS) signal when frequency and time is
disciplined by the precision time kernel modifications. See the "A Kernel
Model for Precision Timekeeping" (available as part of the HTML
documentation provided in /usr/share/doc/ntp) page for further information.
The default for this flag is disable.
stats Enables the statistics facility. See the Monitoring Options section of
ntp.conf(5) for further information. The default for this flag is disable.
restrict address mask flag [...]
This command operates in the same way as the restrict configuration file commands of
ntpd(8).
unrestrict address mask flag [...]
Unrestrict the matching entry from the restrict list.
delrestrict address mask [ntpport]
Delete the matching entry from the restrict list.
readkeys
Causes the current set of authentication keys to be purged and a new set to be
obtained by rereading the keys file (which must have been specified in the ntpd(8)
configuration file). This allows encryption keys to be changed without restarting
the server.
trustedkey keyid [...]
untrustedkey keyid [...]
These commands operate in the same way as the trustedkey and untrustedkey
configuration file commands of ntpd(8).
authinfo
Returns information concerning the authentication module, including known keys and
counts of encryptions and decryptions which have been done.
traps Display the traps set in the server. See the source listing for further
information.
addtrap address [port] [interface]
Set a trap for asynchronous messages. See the source listing for further
information.
clrtrap address [port] [interface]
Clear a trap for asynchronous messages. See the source listing for further
information.
reset Clear the statistics counters in various modules of the server. See the source
listing for further information.
ENVIRONMENT
See OPTION PRESETS for configuration environment variables.
FILES
See OPTION PRESETS for configuration files.
EXIT STATUS
One of the following exit values will be returned:
0 (EXIT_SUCCESS)
Successful program execution.
1 (EXIT_FAILURE)
The operation failed or the command syntax was not valid.
66 (EX_NOINPUT)
A specified configuration file could not be loaded.
70 (EX_SOFTWARE)
libopts had an internal operational error. Please report it to
autogen-users@lists.sourceforge.net. Thank you.
SEE ALSO
ntp.conf(5), ntpd(8)
David L. Mills, Network Time Protocol (Version 3), RFC1305.
AUTHORS
The formatting directives in this document came from FreeBSD.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1992-2017 The University of Delaware and Network Time Foundation all rights
reserved. This program is released under the terms of the NTP license,
<http://ntp.org/license>.
BUGS
The ntpdc utility is a crude hack. Much of the information it shows is deadly boring and
could only be loved by its implementer. The program was designed so that new (and
temporary) features were easy to hack in, at great expense to the program's ease of use.
Despite this, the program is occasionally useful.
Please report bugs to http://bugs.ntp.org .
Please send bug reports to: http://bugs.ntp.org, bugs@ntp.org
NOTES
This manual page was AutoGen-erated from the ntpdc option definitions.