Quick start NTP on the Raspberry Pi A guide based on an application note from Uputronics. There are more detailed background notes here. Some notes from Rich Schmidt using alternative hardware. The updated Uputronics article is here. Thomas Kocourek, N4FWD, was kind enough to supply a PDF guide about stand-alone operation of the Raspberry Pi as a time server with no Internet connection. He includes some considerations about configuring NTP for this use. This is for the Broadband Ham Net community. A. Peter Allan shows a really neat, well-located installation in his photos here. Thanks, Peter! Utilising the Raspberry Pi+ GPS Expansion Board for a PPS Disciplined NTP Server On the Raspberry Pi Description This guide will give instructions on using a HAB Supplies Raspberry Pi+ GPS Expansion Board with a Raspberry Pi+ to get a PPS disciplined NTP Server. The guide is provided as is with no guarantees of performance. Our products should be used only in testing environments and at your own risk and discretion.

The module as supplied by HAB Credits (Anthony wrote) A huge thanks to David Taylor from SatSignal.Eu for his excellent guide here from which this guide is collated. Requirements You will need a Raspberry Pi B+, 2 or 3, HAB Supplies Raspberry Pi+ GPS Expansion Board and a suitable GPS antenna. This guide is assuming you’re using Raspbian installed from 2014-09-09-wheezy-raspbian.img. Download and write this to an SD card (see here). Attach the HAB Supplies Raspberry Pi+ GPS Expansion Board to the Pi, insert the SD card, connect the antenna and network cable and boot up the Pi. Either connect locally or via SSH to the Pi.

Mounted on a Raspberry Pi model B+, equally OK on models 2 & 3 Updates 2015-Jan-27 Update for kernel 3.18.3+ #742 and later, thanks to Chris Stenton for finding the fix.

2015-Mar-19 Note that pps-gpio may already be /etc/modules. Prerequisite settings sudo raspi-config

1. Expand Filesystem

2. Advanced Options -> Disable Serial Shell (optional)

Reboot



sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

sudo rpi-update

sudo reboot

sudo apt-get install pps-tools

sudo apt-get install libcap-dev

sudo apt-get install libssl-dev - you may not need this

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata - unless you want all times in UTC



sudo nano /boot/cmdline.txt – Add bcm2708.pps_gpio_pin=18 at the end of the line.

(if you have previously followed these instructions, remove the added text)



sudo nano /boot/config.txt - Add dtoverlay=pps-gpio,gpiopin=18 on a new line

Save and close



sudo nano /etc/modules – Add pps-gpio on a new line, if it is not already present.

Save, close & reboot Note that the Adafruit GPS Hat uses GPIO 4, physical pin 7, so you would need to change the commands given in this document. To check that the module is loaded, you can use the lsmod command, for example: lsmod | grep pps Output should be similar to: pps_gpio 2529 1

pps_core 7943 2 pps_gpio

Verifying PPS is working Ensure the GPS has a lock and the Green PPS LED on the HAB Supplies Raspberry Pi+ GPS Expansion Board is blinking once a second. dmesg | grep pps Output should be similar to: [ 0.000000] Kernel command line: dma.dmachans=0x7f35 bcm2708_fb.fbwidth=656 bcm2708_fb.fbheight=416 bcm2708.boardrev=0x10 bcm2708.serial=0x1a25ea38 smsc95xx.macaddr=B8:27:EB:25:EA:38 bcm2708_fb.fbswap=1 bcm2708.disk_led_gpio=47 bcm2708.disk_led_active_low=0 sdhci-bcm2708.emmc_clock_freq=250000000 vc_mem.mem_base=0x1ec00000 vc_mem.mem_size=0x20000000 dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline rootwait

[ 0.029423] bcm2708: GPIO 18 setup as pps-gpio device

[ 10.159940] pps_core: LinuxPPS API ver. 1 registered

[ 10.161448] pps_core: Software ver. 5.3.6 - Copyright 2005-2007 Rodolfo Giometti <giometti@linux.it>

[ 10.172015] pps pps0: new PPS source pps-gpio.18

[ 10.173557] pps pps0: Registered IRQ 188 as PPS source Note that with the Raspberry Pi 2, or with more recent versions of Raspbian, you may see: [ 10.172015] pps pps0: new PPS source pps-gpio.-1 sudo ppstest /dev/pps0 Output should be similar to: trying PPS source "/dev/pps0"

found PPS source "/dev/pps0"

ok, found 1 source(s), now start fetching data...

source 0 - assert 1418933982.9980424, sequence: 970 - clear 0.0000000, sequence: 0

source 0 - assert 1418933983.9980454, sequence: 971 - clear 0.0000000, sequence: 0 (Press CTRL+C to quit). This indicates the PPS Module is loaded ( dmesg ) and is working ( ppstest ). Note that there is no value given for the "clear" time. Gary E Miller reports that the pps-gpio driver only looks for one edge, the positive going edge. If you are using a different GPS device from those mentioned here you may need to a 3.3 volt output inverter in the PPS line from the GPS.

Enabling PPS/ATOM support in NTPD The supplied version of NTPD on the Raspberry Pi may not support PPS so we need to recompile it (Please note that the configure and compile steps may take up to 30 minutes on older Raspberry Pi models). The latest version is 4.2.8p12, by the way. wget http://archive.ntp.org/ntp4/ntp-4.2/ntp-4.2.8p12.tar.gz

tar zxvf ntp-4.2.8p12.tar.gz

cd ntp-4.2.8p12

./configure

make

sudo make install

sudo service ntp stop

sudo cp /usr/local/bin/ntp* /usr/bin/ && sudo cp /usr/local/sbin/ntp* /usr/sbin/

sudo nano /etc/ntp.conf Note that for the Raspberry Pi 2 and later, use: make -j5 as it's much quicker than just: make Note that for Raspbian Jessie you should add "--enable-linuxcaps" after the "./configure" ./configure --enable-linuxcaps Thanks for that discovery to Richard Cartwright. Seems to vary whether you need this or not. In editing /etc/ntp.conf, add these lines: server 127.127.22.0 minpoll 4 maxpoll 4

fudge 127.127.22.0 refid PPS Amend this line to add a trailing "prefer": server 0.debian.pool.ntp.org iburst prefer Note: you must add a preferred server or PPS doesn’t work.

Save and close nano. sudo service ntp restart After a few minutes run: ntpq –pn if you get oPPS(0) this indicates source selected, Pulse Per Second (PPS) used and everything is working. To see the version as well, enter: ntpq -crv -pn

New versions If you wish to be informed of new versions of NTP, either follow @NTP on Twitter, or join the NTP Hackers mailing list at: http://lists.ntp.org/listinfo/hackers To prevent NTP being subsequently downgraded when you next update the operating system, you can try: sudo apt-mark hold ntp For more information, please see here. Thanks to Nick Sayer for that suggestion.

Security for external use [DJT notes] If your Raspberry Pi is exposed to the wider Internet, and yet you still want access from the LAN for ntpq commands etc., you may want to adjust the restrict statements in the ntp.conf file to something like the following: restrict source notrap nomodify nopeer

restrict 127.0.0.1

restrict ::1

restrict 192.168.0.0 mask 255.255.255.0 These commands are documented here.

Getting the time stand-alone [DJT notes] If you are operating away from your LAN or the Internet, in addition to the precise edge of the second provided by PPS you will also need to get the nearest second. You can get the time from the serial component of the GPS feed. My own preference is to install gpsd which allows you to see that the GPS is working as well - location, number of satellites etc. There are some notes here but for a different device. Installing GPSD The next steps are to install the gpsd software, and start the gpsd service pointing to the device ttyAMA0: To allow gpsd to access the serial port, you need to make the following changes. You can then check that you are seeing the GPS device, and that it is functioning: If you didn't already do so:

$ sudo raspi-config

Advanced Options -> Disable Serial Shell (optional)

Reboot



$ sudo nano /etc/inittab

(With Raspbian Wheezy, comment out the line like " 2:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyAMA0 115200 vt100 " by putting a hash (#) at the start of the line. Note that the line was not 2:23 on my version of Linux, so be sure to look for the actual line with ttyAMA0. It was the last line of the file, as it happens). This file does not exist under Raspbian Jessie.)

$ sudo reboot

$ sudo apt-get install minicom

$ minicom -b 9600 -o -D /dev/ttyAMA0

(Ctrl-A x exits minicom) Raspberry Pi 3 UART & Bluetooth complications It seems that changes made for the Raspberry Pi 3 currently prevent serial access over pins GPIO14 and GPIO15, which have worked on all other RPi cards. Pain! You find that minicom doesn't show any output, even with the GPS connected. Fortunately, someone has written a DT overlay which resolves the issue, and is now part of the OS distribution. You can read about this here and here. Use these steps: Update your Raspberry Pi:

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get upgrade

$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

$ sudo rpi-update

For versions of Jessie before 2016-Mar-18, add two lines at the end of /boot/config.txt

# Allow the normal UART pins to work

dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt-overlay

For versions of Jessie after 2016-Mar-18, add two lines at the end of /boot/config.txt

# Allow the normal UART pins to work

dtoverlay=pi3-miniuart-bt

Stop the Bluetooth modem from trying to use the UART:

sudo systemctl disable hciuart

If you have smsc95xx.turbo_mode=N in your /boot/cmdline.txt, remove it. Then sudo reboot your Raspberry Pi and test with minicom again as described above. I found (2) worked on 2016-Mar-20, when the OS version I ended up with ( uname -a ) was: Linux 4.1.20-v7+ #862 SMP Sat Mar 19. However, I needed the overlay in (3) above for Linux 4.4.6-v7+ #874 SMP.

See: http://www.briandorey.com/post/Raspberry-Pi-3-UART-Boot-Overlay-Part-Two Still not working? It seems that with Jessie things are continually changing regarding access to the serial port. For example, David Briggs notes: No matter what I did, I couldn't get any GPS output from minicom or " cgps -s "? I even resorted to re-installing Raspian Jessie and starting from scratch but that still didn't work. I then went on line and found the forums on raspberrypi.org. A search there produced this link which supplied the answer:



https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=148515



The solution appears to be, in addition to disabling the serial console in raspi-config, that you have to alter an entry in /boot/config from 'enable_uart=0' to 'enable_uart=1'. Mine was set to 0 which apparently disables the serial port. GPSD software Now install the GPSD software: $ sudo apt-get install gpsd gpsd-clients python-gps From one report I had received, if you get errors with the above step you may need to run an update to apt-get: $ sudo apt-get update

and possibly then:

$ sudo apt-get upgrade Now try and start the gpsd service temporarily. $ sudo gpsd /dev/ttyAMA0 -n -F /var/run/gpsd.sock At this point, you should be able to see a text-mode output from your GPS receiver by running the command "cgps -s", something like the following. $ cgps -s Type "q" to exit the cgps program. Note that you can't use two programs to access the serial stream from the GPS at the same time, so minicom will not longer show the GPS output. Configuring gpsd to auto-start Likely with a fresh install of Raspbian Jessie instead of the GPS output showing you may get a "GPS timeout" message. Try editing the startup file and linkage for GPSD as follows. Thanks to A Carver: The gpsd needs to be started with the "-n" option. These options are set in the directory /etc/default, so you need to edit the file /etc/default/gpsd to change the line: GPSD_OPTIONS="" to GPSD_OPTIONS="-n". Method A is to do this through dpkg-reconfigure gpsd (which appears not to work as expected with Raspbian Jessie), method B is to edit the file directly. Set USBAUTO="false". Set DEVICES="/dev/ttyAMA0". $ sudo nano /etc/default/gpsd See: http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/29547/cant-get-gps-to-automatically-work-after-reboot With Raspbian Jessie, gpsd doesn't appear to auto-start properly, but Tomasz Torcz on the comp.sys.raspberry-pi Usenet group suggested trying: $ sudo ln -s /lib/systemd/system/gpsd.service /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/ and that appears to do the trick. You should then find that gpsd restarts after a reboot. Some changes you may need to make if it doesn't work Rob Ramsey writes: First, thanks for putting together such a great guide! I wanted to provide the following feedback:



When following your procedure I had trouble getting "cgps -s" to work until I made the following changes to /etc/default/gpsd: # Default settings for the gpsd init script and the hotplug wrapper.



# Start the gpsd daemon automatically at boot time

START_DAEMON="true"



# Use USB hotplugging to add new USB devices automatically to the daemon

USBAUTO="false"



# Devices gpsd should collect to at boot time.

# They need to be read/writeable, either by user gpsd or the group dialout.

DEVICES="/dev/ttyAMA0"



# Other options you want to pass to gpsd

GPSD_OPTIONS="-n"

GPSD_SOCKET="/var/run/gpsd.sock" Thanks, Rob! David. Raspbian Jessie systemd service fix Tom Thorton notes that this information from the Adafruit Web site helped him: Note that if you're using the Raspbian Jessie or later release you'll need to disable a systemd service that gpsd installs. This service has systemd listen on a local socket and run gpsd when clients connect to it, however it will also interfere with other gpsd instances that are manually run (like in this guide). You will need to disable the gpsd systemd service by running the following commands: $ sudo systemctl stop gpsd.socket

$ sudo systemctl disable gpsd.socket

Changes to your NTP configuration Once GPSD is installed, you can use the shared memory driver, type 28 to point NTP to the nearest second. For example, your ntp.conf file might include: # Kernel-mode PPS reference-clock for the precise seconds

server 127.127.22.0 minpoll 4 maxpoll 4

fudge 127.127.22.0 refid kPPS



# Coarse time reference-clock - nearest second

server 127.127.28.0 minpoll 4 maxpoll 4 iburst prefer

fudge 127.127.28.0 time1 +0.105 flag1 1 refid GPSD stratum 1 Note that with the type 28 driver you may want "flag1 1" in the fudge line, as this overrides the 4 hour maximum offset sanity check built into the type 28 ref-clock. This is still under investigation. There is already a "-g" parameter specified in Raspbian for that start of ntpd, which should allow it to step the time as much as is required at startup (which could be several days or weeks if your Raspberry Pi has been powered down for some time), but it seems that the type 28 driver has its own additional sanity check, which by default prevents correct operation after more than four hours down time. Thanks to Whitham D. Reeve from Anchorage, Alaska USA for the testing. The +0.105 aligns the timing of the serial data from the GPS approximately with the actual second edge. It doesn't need to be exact, but may make for faster acquisition of the true second edge. In an earlier version of this Web page I had suggested "stratum 15", but this no longer appears to work, hence "stratum 1". Earlier notes than the above: To allow gpsd to access the serial port, you need to make some changes. The easiest way to do this under Raspbian Jessie is to use the Raspi-config command described here. Select the Advanced option, Serial, No. Remember to use sudo!

Raspberry Pi Zero notes Greg Brougham kindly e-mailed some notes on the Raspberry Pi Zero which may be of help to you as I have no current experience of the device. He writes



David, I thought that the data and tracking might be the reason you've retained the use of gpsd [rather than using NTP alone to get the PPS support]. BTW these some notes on using Pi3/Zero wireless. I've did also try the pi3-disable-bt overlay but found that there was no difference between using the hardware and software UARTs. Using the later is quite straight forward as raspi-config supports disabling the console and enabling the secondary UART.



On the Pi3/Zero wireless, the hardware UART is used for Bluetooth but there is a secondary one available on ttyS0. To make it available use raspi-config to change the serial interfaces – stop the console and enable the serial port – this updates /boot/cmdline.txt removing serial0 and adds enable_uart=1 to /boot/config.txt (in more recent versions of Raspbian it also fixes the clock frequency so core_freq=250 is no longer needed). You then need to disable getty on ttyS0.



sudo systemctl stop serial-getty@ttyS0.service

sudo systemctl disable serial-getty@ttyS0.service



Regards

Greg

Further Reading David Taylor’s website here goes into much further detail about the process above and covers graphing etc.



Explanation of the output of ntpq command is here:

http://tech.kulish.com/2007/10/30/ntp-ntpq-output-explained/



command is here: http://tech.kulish.com/2007/10/30/ntp-ntpq-output-explained/ http://ntp.org/ - The Network Time Foundation Contact HAB Supplies T/A Nevis Computers Limited

Cottingley Business Park

Bingley

BD16 1PE Phone: +44 1274 550910

Company number 3356647 E-Mail : info@habsupplies.com

Web : http://ava.upuaut.net/store