All,
This is my first attempt to build an 'accurate' GPS-based time server.
There is no Internet connectivity, so the GPS (and it's PPS) are the
only sources of timing data.
I'm using a San Jose Navigation FV-M8 [1]. As a GPS, it works great. I
piped the PPS signal to the CTS line (gpsd-2.36 supports this) and with
a minor tweak to gpsd (until I can find the sentence to change the pulse
length), gpsd finds the pulse and hands everything off to ntpd as per
the gpsd man page [2].
Watching ntpd from 'ntpq -p' appears to work as expected. When the
offset (SHM(0), average gps) is less than 1 second, gpsd sends the
appropriate info to SHM(1) (gps pps), which ntpd uses ('ntpq -p' SHM(1)
reach changes from 0 to positive values).
Basically, I think I have the hardware set up right. However, I left it
running over night because I kept seeing the following:
# watch -n3 ntpq -p
remote refid st t when poll reach delay offset
jitter
==============================================================================
*SHM(0) .GPS. 0 l - 16 377 0.000 1831.01
771.100
SHM(1) .GPS1. 0 l 86 16 40 0.000 0.000
0.004
Sorry if it's line wrapped. The offset of SHM(0) will wander from less
than a second (< 1000.00) to around 8 seconds. Each time it gets close
(< 1000.00) the numbers for SHM(1) start changing, which tells me it's
trying to use the PPS to pull it in tight. But, then SHM(0) will wander
off again.
What is normal? How long should it take a stand alone GPS time server
to lock in? What should I tweak to fix this? Any insight would be
appreciated.
/etc/ntp.conf appended.
Note: I tried deleting the drift file, and changing the time1 value, to
no avail. (I'm shooting in the dark with that one ;-) )
thx,
Jason.
[1] - http://www.sanav.com/gps_engine_board/FV-M8.htm
[2] - http://gpsd.berlios.de/gpsd.html
Section: "Use with NTP"
######## /etc/ntp.conf ###############################################
[snipped commented out stuff]
# Added 20080122 to sync to GPS
server 127.127.28.0 minpoll 4 maxpoll 4
#fudge 127.127.28.0 time1 0.420 refid GPS
fudge 127.127.28.0 time1 0.320 refid GPS
server 127.127.28.1 minpoll 4 maxpoll 4 prefer
fudge 127.127.28.1 refid GPS1
[snipped out more comments]
# you should not need to modify the following paths
driftfile /var/lib/ntp/ntp.drift
[snip]
# To deny other machines from changing the
# configuration but allow localhost:
restrict default nomodify nopeer
restrict 127.0.0.1
######################################################################
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