Problem migrating from legacy to ntpsec

[James Browning]

> On 09/06/2024 9:07 AM PDT Jim Pennino via users <users at ntpsec.org> wrote:

> I have a precision time and frequency device that provides, among other things, a serial port outputting NMEA data and pps with a specified accuracy of +/- 1 ns.
> 
> This has been working just fine for many years.
> 
> After an upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04.1 I found legacy ntp had been replaced by ntpsec-1.2.2 and the reference clock no longer works. The output of ntpq -pn is:
> 
> xNMEA(0) .PPS. 0 l - 16 377 0.0000 -96.9056 0.5170
> +192.168.0.100 .PPS. 1 u 24 1024 377 0.1328 -0.8315 0.7548
> *192.168.0.101 .PPS. 1 u 332 1024 377 0.1171 -0.8703 0.8439
> +192.168.0.21 .PPS. 1 u 137 1024 377 0.1565 1.5477 0.7258
> 
> The relevant lines from ntp.conf are:
> 
> server 127.127.20.0 mode 16 minpoll 4 iburst
> fudge 127.127.20.0 time1 -0.0007 flag1 1 flag2 0 flag3 1 refid PPS
> 
> In going through the documentation I found that it says the 127.127.x.y is replaced by a new symbol notation but is still recognized, so that should not be an issue. I did not find anything else that needs to be changed other than the location of the statistics files which I process to provide graphic status, but I may have missed something.
> 
> So, can anyone tell me what I need to do here to get it working again with ntpsec?

I would suggest squashing the contents of the fudge line into the server line contradicting what I write below, changing the mode to 0x10f and adding 'baud 9600'.

If been saying some randomish things about this at https://gitlab.com/NTPsec/ntpsec/-/issues/826

If reasonable I would like a couple seconds of serial output from the gpsdo(?).

> Also, is it a true statement that all I have to do to change to the new naming scheme is to change 127.127.20.0 to nmea?

No, it is not a true statement, and if you were to change back to classic ntpd at some point, it would be a minor obstacle. As it would be if changing to a copy of NTPsec built for strict compatibility.