freebsd/usr.sbin/ntp/doc/ntpq.8

.\"
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd January 7, 2000
.Dt NTPQ 8
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm ntpq
.Nd standard NTP query program
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl inp
.Op Fl c Ar command
.Op Ar host ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility program is used to query NTP servers
which implement the recommended NTP mode 6 control message format
about current state and to request changes in that state.
The
program may be run either in interactive mode or controlled using
command line arguments.
Requests to read and write arbitrary
variables can be assembled, with raw and pretty-printed output
options being available.
.Nm
can also obtain and print a
list of peers in a common format by sending multiple queries to the
server.
.Pp
If one or more request options is included on the command line
when
.Nm
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,
.Nm
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.
.Nm
will prompt for
commands if the standard input is a terminal device.
.Pp
.Nm
uses NTP mode 6 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.
.Nm
makes
one attempt to retransmit requests, and will time requests out if
the remote host is not heard from within a suitable timeout
time.
.Pp
For examples and usage, see the
.Qq "NTP Debugging Techniques"
page
(available as part of the HTML documentation
provided in
.Pa /usr/share/doc/ntp ) .
.Pp
The following options are available:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl c
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).
Multiple
.Fl c
options may be given.
.It Fl i
Force
.Nm
to operate in interactive mode.
Prompts
will be written to the standard output and commands read from the
standard input.
.It Fl n
Output all host addresses in dotted-quad numeric format rather
than converting to the canonical host names.
.It Fl p
Print a list of the peers known to the server as well as a
summary of their state.
This is equivalent to the
.Ic peers
interactive command.
.El
.Pp
Specifying a
command line option other than
.Fl i
or
.Fl n
will
cause the specified query (queries) to be sent to the indicated
host(s) immediately.
Otherwise,
.Nm
will attempt to read
interactive format commands from the standard input.
.Ss "Internal 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
.Ql \&< ,
followed by a file name, to the command line.
A
number of interactive format commands are executed entirely within
the
.Nm
program itself and do not result in NTP mode 6
requests being sent to a server.
These are described following.
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Ic \&? Op Ar command_keyword
.It Ic help Op Ar command_keyword
A
.Ql \&?
by itself will print a list of all the command
keywords known to this incarnation of
.Nm .
A
.Ql \&?
followed by a command keyword will print function and usage
information about the command.
This command is probably a better
source of information about
.Nm
than this manual
page.
.It Xo Ic addvars
.Ar variable_name Ns Op = Ns Ar value ...
.Xc
.It Ic rmvars Ar variable_name ...
.It Ic clearvars
The data carried by NTP mode 6 messages consists of a list of
items of the form
.Ql variable_name=value ,
where the
.Ql =value
is ignored, and can be omitted,
in requests to the server to read variables.
.Nm
maintains an internal list in which data to be included in control
messages can be assembled, and sent using the
.Ic readlist
and
.Ic writelist
commands described below.
The
.Ic addvars
command allows variables and their optional values to be added to
the list.
If more than one variable is to be added, the list should
be comma-separated and not contain white space.
The
.Ic rmvars
command can be used to remove individual variables from the list,
while the
.Ic clearlist   
command removes all variables from the
list.
.It Ic authenticate Cm yes | Cm no
Normally
.Nm
does not authenticate requests unless
they are write requests.
The command
.Ql authenticate yes
causes
.Nm
to send authentication with all requests it
makes.
Authenticated requests causes some servers to handle
requests slightly differently, and can occasionally melt the CPU in
fuzzballs if you turn authentication on before doing a
.Ic peer
display.
.It Ic cooked
Causes output from query commands to be "cooked", so that
variables which are recognized by
.Nm
will have their
values reformatted for human consumption.
Variables which
.Nm
thinks should have a decodable value but didn't are
marked with a trailing
.Ql \&?  .
.It Xo Ic debug
.Cm more |
.Cm less |
.Cm off
.Xc
Turns internal query program debugging on and off.
.It Ic delay Ar 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.
.It Ic host Ar hostname
Set the host to which future queries will be sent.
Hostname may
be either a host name or a numeric address.
.It Ic hostnames Cm yes | Cm no
If
.Cm yes
is specified, host names are printed in
information displays.
If
.Cm no
is specified, numeric
addresses are printed instead.
The default is
.Cm yes ,
unless
modified using the command line
.Fl n
switch.
.It Ic keyid Ar 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.
.It Xo Ic ntpversion
.Cm 1 |
.Cm 2 |
.Cm 3 |
.Cm 4
.Xc
Sets the NTP version number which
.Nm
claims in
packets.
Defaults to 3, Note that mode 6 control messages (and
modes, for that matter) didn't exist in NTP version 1.
There appear
to be no servers left which demand version 1.
.It Ic quit
Exit
.Nm .
.It Ic 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.
.It Ic raw
Causes all output from query commands is printed as received
from the remote server.
The only formating/interpretation done on
the data is to transform nonascii data into a printable (but barely
understandable) form.
.It Ic timeout Ar milliseconds
Specify a timeout period for responses to server queries.
The
default is about 5000 milliseconds.
Note that since
.Nm
retries each query once after a timeout, the total waiting time for
a timeout will be twice the timeout value set.
.El
.Ss Control Message Commands
Each peer known to an NTP server has a 16 bit integer association
identifier assigned to it.
NTP control messages which carry peer
variables must identify the peer the values correspond to by
including its association ID.
An association ID of 0 is special,
and indicates the variables are system variables, whose names are
drawn from a separate name space.
.Pp
Control message commands result in one or more NTP mode 6
messages being sent to the server, and cause the data returned to
be printed in some format.
Most commands currently implemented send
a single message and expect a single response.
The current
exceptions are the peers command, which will send a preprogrammed
series of messages to obtain the data it needs, and the mreadlist
and mreadvar commands, which will iterate over a range of
associations.
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Ic associations
Obtains and prints a list of association identifiers and peer
statuses for in-spec peers of the server being queried.
The list is
printed in columns.
The first of these is an index numbering the
associations from 1 for internal use, the second the actual
association identifier returned by the server and the third the
status word for the peer.
This is followed by a number of columns
containing data decoded from the status word.
See the peers command
for a decode of the
.Sq condition
field.
Note that the data
returned by the
.Ic associations
command is cached internally
in
.Xr ntpq 8  .
The index is then of use when dealing with stupid
servers which use association identifiers which are hard for humans
to type, in that for any subsequent commands which require an
association identifier as an argument, the form and index may be
used as an alternative.
.It Xo Ic clockvar Op Ar assocID
.Oo
.Ar variable_name Ns Op = Ns Ar value ...
.Oc
.Ar ...
.Xc
.It Xo Ic cv Op Ar assocID
.Oo
.Ar variable_name Ns Op = Ns Ar value ...
.Oc
.Ar ...
.Xc
Requests that a list of the server's clock variables be sent.
Servers which have a radio clock or other external synchronization
will respond positively to this.
If the association identifier is
omitted or zero the request is for the variables of the
.Sq system clock
and will generally get a positive response from all
servers with a clock.
If the server treats clocks as pseudo-peers,
and hence can possibly have more than one clock connected at once,
referencing the appropriate peer association ID will show the
variables of a particular clock.
Omitting the variable list will
cause the server to return a default variable display.
.It Ic lassociations
Obtains and prints a list of association identifiers and peer
statuses for all associations for which the server is maintaining
state.
This command differs from the
.Ic associations
command
only for servers which retain state for out-of-spec client
associations (i.e., fuzzballs).
Such associations are normally
omitted from the display when the
.Ic associations
command is
used, but are included in the output of
.Ic lassociations .
.It Ic lpassociations
Print data for all associations, including out-of-spec client
associations, from the internally cached list of associations.
This
command differs from
.Ic passociations
only when dealing with
fuzzballs.
.It Ic lpeers
Like R peers, except a summary of all associations for which
the server is maintaining state is printed.
This can produce a much
longer list of peers from fuzzball servers.
.It Ic mreadlist Ar assocID Ar assocID
.It Ic mrl Ar assocID Ar assocID
Like the
.Ic readlist
command, except the query is done
for each of a range of (nonzero) association IDs.
This range is
determined from the association list cached by the most recent
.Ic associations
command.
.It Xo Ic mreadvar Ar assocID Ar assocID
.Oo
.Ar variable_name Ns Op = Ns Ar value ...
.Oc
.Xc
.It Xo Ic mrv Ar assocID Ar assocID
.Oo
.Ar variable_name Ns Op = Ns Ar value ...
.Oc
.Xc
Like the
.Ic readvar
command, except the query is done for
each of a range of (nonzero) association IDs.
This range is
determined from the association list cached by the most recent
.Ic associations
command.
.It Ic opeers
An old form of the
.Ic peers
command with the reference ID
replaced by the local interface address.
.It Ic passocations
Displays association data concerning in-spec peers from the
internally cached list of associations.
This command performs
identically to the
.Ic associations
except that it displays
the internally stored data rather than making a new query.
.It Ic peers
Obtains a current list peers of the server, along with a
summary of each peer's state.
Summary information includes the
address of the remote peer, the reference ID (0.0.0.0 if this is
unknown), the stratum of the remote peer, the type of the peer
(local, unicast, multicast or broadcast), when the last packet was
received, the polling interval, in seconds, the reachability
register, in octal, and the current estimated delay, offset and
dispersion of the peer, all in milliseconds.
The character in the left margin indicates the fate of this
peer in the clock selection process.
Following is a list of these
characters, the pigeon used in the
.Ic rv
command, and a short
explanation of the condition revealed.
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It space
.Pq reject
The peer is discarded as unreachable, synchronized to this
server (synch loop) or outrageous synchronization distance.
.It x
.Pq falsetick
The peer is discarded by the intersection algorithm as a
falseticker.
.It \&.
.Pq excess
The peer is discarded as not among the first ten peers sorted
by synchronization distance and so is probably a poor candidate for
further consideration.
.It \&-
.Pq outlyer
The peer is discarded by the clustering algorithm as an
outlyer.
.It \&+
.Pq candidat
The peer is a survivor and a candidate for the combining
algorithm.
.It \&#
.Pq selected
The peer is a survivor, but not among the first six peers
sorted by synchronization distance.
If the assocation is ephemeral,
it may be demobilized to conserve resources.
.It \&*
.Pq peer
The peer has been declared the system peer and lends its
variables to the system variables.
.It o
.Pq (pps.peer)
The peer has been declared the system peer and lends its
variables to thesystem variables.
However, the actual system
synchronization is derived from a pulse-per-second (PPS) signal,
either indirectly via the PPS reference clock driver or directly
via kernel interface.
.El
.El
.Pp
The
.Va flash
variable is a valuable debugging aid.
It
displays the results of the original sanity checks defined in the
NTP specification RFC-1305 and additional ones added in NTP Version
4.
There are eleven tests called
.Sy TEST1
through
.Sy TEST11 .
The tests are performed in a certain order
designed to gain maximum diagnostic information while protecting
against accidental or malicious errors.
The
.Va flash
variable
is first initialized to zero.
If after each set of tests one or
more bits are set, the packet is discarded.
.Pp
Tests
.Sy TEST4
and
.Sy TEST5
check the access
permissions and cryptographic message digest.
If any bits are set
after that, the packet is discarded.
Tests
.Sy TEST10
and
.Sy TEST11
check the authentication state using Autokey
public-key cryptography, as described in the
.Sx Authentication Options
section of
.Xr ntp.conf 5 .
If any bits are set
and the association has previously been marked reachable, the
packet is discarded; otherwise, the originate and receive
timestamps are saved, as required by the NTP protocol, and
processing continues.
.Pp
Tests
.Sy TEST1
through
.Sy TEST3
check the packet
timestamps from which the offset and delay are calculated.
If any
bits are set, the packet is discarded; otherwise, the packet header
variables are saved.
Tests
.Sy TEST6
through
.Sy TEST8
check the health of the server.
If any bits are set, the packet is
discarded; otherwise, the offset and delay relative to the server
are calculated and saved.
Test
.Sy TEST9
checks the health of
the association itself.
If any bits are set, the packet is
discarded; otherwise, the saved variables are passed to the clock
filter and mitigation algorithms.
.Pp
The
.Va flash
bits for each test read in increasing order
from the least significant bit are defined as follows.
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Sy TEST1
Duplicate packet.
The packet is at best a casual retransmission
and at worst a malicious replay.
.It Sy TEST2
Bogus packet.
The packet is not a reply to a message previously
sent.
This can happen when the NTP daemon is restarted and before
somebody else notices.
.It Sy TEST3
Unsynchronized.
One or more timestamp fields are invalid.
This
normally happens when the first packet from a peer is
received.
.It Sy TEST4
Access is denied.
See the
.Qq "Access Control"
page.
.It Sy TEST5
Cryptographic authentication fails.
See the
.Sx Authentication Options
section of
.Xr ntp.conf 5 .
.It Sy TEST6
The server is unsynchronized.
Wind up its clock first.
.It Sy TEST7
The server stratum is at the maximum than 15.
It is probably
unsynchronized and its clock needs to be wound up.
.It Sy TEST8
Either the root delay or dispersion is greater than one second,
which is highly unlikely unless the peer is synchronized to
Mars.
.It Sy TEST9
Either the peer delay or dispersion is greater than one second,
which is higly unlikely unless the peer is on Mars.
.It Sy TEST10
The autokey protocol has detected an authentication failure.
See the
.Sx Authentication Options
section of
.Xr ntp.conf 5 .
.It Sy TEST11
The autokey protocol has not verified the server or peer is
authentic and has valid public key credentials.
See the
.Sx Authentication Options
section of
.Xr ntp.conf 5 .
.El
.Pp
Additional system variables used by the NTP Version 4 Autokey
support include the following:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Ic certificate Ar filestamp
Shows the NTP seconds when the certificate file was
created.
.It Ic hostname Ar host
Shows the name of the host as returned by the Unix
.Xr gethostname 3
library function.
.It Ic flags Ar hex
Shows the current flag bits, where the
.Ar hex
bits
are interpreted as follows:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It 0x01
autokey enabled
.It 0x02
RSA public/private key files present
.It 0x04
PKI certificate file present
.It 0x08
Diffie-Hellman parameters file present
.It 0x10
NIST leapseconds table file present
.El
.It Ic leapseconds Ar filestamp
Shows the NTP seconds when the NIST leapseconds table file was
created.
.It Ic params Ar filestamp
Shows the NTP seconds when the Diffie-Hellman agreement
parameter file was created.
.It Ic publickey Ar filestamp
Shows the NTP seconds when the RSA public/private key files
were created.
.It Ic refresh Ar filestamp
Shows the NTP seconds when the public cryptographic values were
refreshed and signed.
.It Ic tai Ar offset
Shows the TAI-UTC offset in seconds obtained from the NIST
leapseconds table.
.El
.Pp
Additional peer variables used by the NTP Version 4 Autokey
support include the following:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Ic certificate Ar filestamp
Shows the NTP seconds when the certificate file was
created.
.It Ic flags Ar hex
Shows the current flag bits, where the
.Ar hex
bits are
interpreted as in the system variable of the same name.
The bits
are set in the first autokey message received from the server and
then reset as the associated data are obtained from the server and
stored.
.It Ic hcookie Ar hex
Shows the host cookie used in the key agreement algorithm.
.It Ic initkey Ar key
Shows the initial key used by the key list generator in the
autokey protocol.
.It Ic initsequence Ar index
Shows the initial index used by the key list generator in the
autokey protocol.
.It Ic pcookie Ar hex
Specifies the peer cookie used in the key agreement
algorithm.
.It Ic timestamp Ar time
Shows the NTP seconds when the last autokey key list was
generated and signed.
.It Ic pstatus Ar assocID
Sends a read status request to the server for the given
association.
The names and values of the peer variables returned
will be printed.
Note that the status word from the header is
displayed preceding the variables, both in hexidecimal and in
pidgeon English.
.It Ic readlist Ar assocID
.It Ic rl Ar assocID
Requests that the values of the variables in the internal
variable list be returned by the server.
If the association ID is
omitted or is 0 the variables are assumed to be system variables.
Otherwise they are treated as peer variables.
If the internal
variable list is empty a request is sent without data, which should
induce the remote server to return a default display.
.It Xo Ic readvar Ar assocID
.Ar variable_name Ns Op = Ns Ar value
.Ar ...
.Xc
.It Xo Ic rv Ar assocID
.Ar variable_name Ns Op = Ns Ar value
.Ar ...
.Xc
Requests that the values of the specified variables be returned
by the server by sending a read variables request.
If the
association ID is omitted or is given as zero the variables are
system variables, otherwise they are peer variables and the values
returned will be those of the corresponding peer.
Omitting the
variable list will send a request with no data which should induce
the server to return a default display.
.It Xo Ic writevar Ar assocID
.Ar variable_name Ns Op = Ns Ar value
.Ar ...
.Xc
Like the readvar request, except the specified variables are
written instead of read.
.It Ic writelist Op Ar assocID
Like the readlist request, except the internal list variables
are written instead of read.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr ntp.conf 5 ,
.Xr ntpd 8 ,
.Xr ntpdc 8
.Sh BUGS
The
.Ic peers
command is non-atomic and may occasionally result in
spurious error messages about invalid associations occurring and
terminating the command.
The timeout time is a fixed constant,
which means you wait a long time for timeouts since it assumes sort
of a worst case.
The program should improve the timeout estimate as
it sends queries to a particular host, but doesn't.