# Monitoring Commands and Options

| from Pogo, Walt Kelly Pig was hired to watch the logs.

## 1. Related Links

## 2. Monitoring Commands and Options

- filegen - specify monitor files

- statistics - enable writing of statistics records

- statsdir - specify monitor files directory

- Command Index

## 3. Table of Contents

- Naming Conventions

- Monitoring Commands and Options

- File Set Types

## 4. Naming Conventions

The `ntpd` daemon includes a comprehensive monitoring facility which collects statistical data of various types and writes the data to files associated with each type at defined events or intervals. The files associated with a particular type are collectively called the generation file set for that type. The files in the file set are the members of that set.

File sets have names specific to the type and generation epoch. The names are constructed from three concatenated elements prefix, filename and suffix:

prefix

  The directory path specified in the `statsdir` command.

name

  The name specified by the `file` option of the `filegen` command.

suffix

  A string of elements beginning with . (dot) followed by a number of elements depending on the file set type.

There is a visualization tool, ntpviz, which assists in making sense of statistics files.

## 5. Monitoring Commands and Options

Unless noted otherwise, further information about these commands is on the Event Messages and Status Codes page.

`statistics` name…​

  Enables writing of statistics records. Currently, eight kinds of name statistics are supported.

  `clockstats`

    Enables recording of clock driver statistics information. Each update received from a clock driver appends a line of the following form to the file generation set named clockstats:

      49213 525.624 SPECTRACOM(1) 93 226 00:08:29.606

  Item | Units | Description
  49213 | MJD | modified Julian day number
  525.624 | s | time of day (s) past midnight UTC
  SPECTRACOM(1) |  | receiver identifier (Spectracom unit 1)
  93 226 00:08:29.606 |  | timecode (format varies by refclock)

  The first two fields show the date (Modified Julian Day) and time (seconds and fraction past UTC midnight). The next normally shows clock type and unit (but if you are running in strict Classic compatibility mode it will show the magic clock address in dotted-quad notation). The final field is the last timecode received from the clock in decoded ASCII format, where meaningful. For some clock drivers, a good deal of additional information can be gathered and displayed as well. See information specific to each clock for further details.

  `loopstats`

    Enables recording of loop filter statistics information. Each update of the local clock outputs a line of the following form to the file generation set named loopstats:

      50935 75440.031 0.000006019 13.778190 0.000351733 0.0133806

  Item | Units | Description
  `50935` | MJD | date
  `75440.031` | s | time past midnight
  `0.000006019` | s | clock offset
  `13.778` | PPM | drift (frequency offset)
  `0.000351733` | s | RMS jitter
  `0.013380` | PPM | RMS frequency jitter (aka wander)
  `6` | log2 s | clock discipline loop time constant

  The first two fields show the date (Modified Julian Day) and time (seconds and fraction past UTC midnight). The next five fields show time offset (seconds), frequency offset (parts per million - PPM), RMS jitter (seconds), Allan deviation (PPM) and clock discipline time constant.

  `protostats`

    Record significant peer and system events. Each significant event appends one line to the `protostats` file set:

  `49213 525.624 128.4.1.1 963a 8a` message

  Item | Units | Description
  `49213` | MJD | date
  `525.624` | s | time past midnight
  `128.4.1.1` | IP | source address (`0.0.0.0` for system)
  `963a` | code | status word
  `8a` | code | event message code
  message | text | event message

  The event message code and message field are described on the "Event Messages and Status Words" page.

  `peerstats`

    Enables recording of peer statistics information. This includes statistics records of all peers of an NTP server and of special signals, where present and configured. Each valid update appends a line of the following form to the current element of a file generation set named peerstats:

      48773 10847.650 SPECTRACOM(4) 9714 -0.001605376 0.000000000
          0.001424877 0.000958674

  Item | Units | Description
  `48773` | MJD | date
  `10847.650` | s | time past midnight
  `SPECTRACOM(4)` |  | clock name (unit) or source address
  `9714` | hex | status word
  `-0.001605376` | s | clock offset
  `0.000000000` | s | roundtrip delay
  `0.001424877` | s | dispersion
  `0.000958674` | s | RMS jitter

  The first two fields show the date (Modified Julian Day) and time (seconds and fraction past UTC midnight). The third field shows the reference clock type and unit number (but if you are running in the peer address in dotted-quad notation instead) The fourth field is a status word, encoded in hex in the format described in Appendix A of the NTP specification RFC 1305. The final four fields show the offset, delay, dispersion and RMS jitter, all in seconds.

  `rawstats`

    Enables recording of raw-timestamp statistics information. This includes statistics records of all peers of an NTP server and of special signals, where present and configured. Each NTP message received from a peer or clock driver appends a line of the following form to the file generation set named rawstats:

      59786 36302.768 2610:20:6f15:15::27 2604:a880:1:20::17:5001 3867818701.119346355 3867818701.152009264 3867818701.152010426 3867818702.768490825 0 3 4 1 13 -29 0.000244 0.000488 .NIST. 0 1 2000

  Item | Units | Description
  59786 | MJD | date
  36302.768 | s | time past midnight
  2610:20:6f15:15::27 | IP | source address
  2604:a880:1:20::17:5001 | IP | destination address
  3867818701.119346355 | NTP s | origin timestamp
  3867818701.152009264 | NTP s | receive timestamp
  3867818701.152010426 | NTP s | transmit timestamp
  3867818702.768490825 | NTP s | destination timestamp
  0 | 0: OK, 1: insert pending, 2: delete pending, 3: not synced | leap warning indicator
  3 | 4 was current in 2012 | NTP version
  4 | 3: client, 4: server, 6: ntpq | mode
  1 | 1-15, 16: not synced | stratum
  13 | log2 seconds | poll
  -29 | log2 seconds | precision
  0.000244 | seconds | total roundtrip delay from the remote server to the primary reference clock
  0.000488 | seconds | total dispersion from the remote server to the primary reference clock
  .NIST. | IP or text | refid, association ID
  0 | integer | lost packets since last response
  1 | integer | dropped packets since last request
  2000 | hex integer | 0 if packet accecpted, BOGON flag if packet is discarded

  The first two fields show the date (Modified Julian Day) and time (seconds and fraction past UTC midnight). The next two fields show the remote IP Address followed by the local address. The next four fields show the originate, receive, transmit and final NTP timestamps in order. The timestamp values are as received and before processing by the various data smoothing and mitigation algorithms.

  A packet that is accecpted is logged. At most the first dropped packet per request is logged. That avoids DDoSing the log file.

  The BOGON flags are decoded here.

  `sysstats`

    Enables recording of ntpd statistics counters on a periodic basis. Each hour a line of the following form is appended to the file generation set named sysstats:

      59935 82782.547 3600 36082754 31287166 26510580 4779042 113 19698 1997 428 4773352 0 366120

  Item | Units | Description
  `59935` | MJD | date
  `82782.547` | s | time past midnight
  `3600` | s | time since reset
  `36082754` | # | packets received
  `31287166` | # | packets processed
  `26510580` | # | current version
  `4779042` | # | old version(s)
  `113` | # | access denied
  `19698` | # | bad length or format
  `1997` | # | bad authentication
  `428` | # | declined
  `4773352` | # | rate exceeded
  `0` | # | kiss-o'-death packets sent
  `366120` | # | NTPv1 packets received

  The first two fields show the date (Modified Julian Day) and time (seconds and fraction past UTC midnight). The remaining ten fields show the statistics counter values accumulated since the last generated line.

  `usestats`

    Enables recording of ntpd resource usage statistics. Each hour a line of the following form is appended to the file generation set named usestats:

      57570 83399.541 3600 0.902 1.451 164 0 0 0 2328 64226 1 0 4308

  Item | Units | Description
  `57570` | MJD | date
  `83399.541` | s | time past midnight
  `3600` | s | time since reset
  `0.902` | s | ru_utime: CPU seconds - user mode
  `1.451` | s | ru_stime: CPU seconds - system
  `164` | # | ru_minflt: page faults - reclaim/soft (no I/O)
  `0` | # | ru_majflt: page faults - I/O
  `0` | # | ru_nswap: process swapped out
  `0` | # | ru_inblock: file blocks in
  `2328` | # | ru_oublock: file blocks out
  `64226` | # | ru_nvcsw: context switches, wait
  `1` | # | ru_nivcsw: context switches, preempts
  `0` | # | ru_nsignals: signals
  `4308` | # | ru_maxrss: resident set size, kilobytes

  The first two fields show the date (Modified Julian Day) and time (seconds and fraction past UTC midnight). The ru_ tags are the names from the rusage struct. See `man getrusage` for details. (The NetBSD and FreeBSD man pages have more details.) The maxrss column is the high water mark since the process was started. The remaining fields show the values used since the last report.

`statsdir` directory_path

  Indicates the full path of a directory where statistics files should be created (see below). This keyword allows the (otherwise constant) filegen filename prefix to be modified for file generation sets, which is useful for handling statistics logs.

`filegen` name [`file` filename] [`type` typename] [`link` | `nolink`] [`enable` | `disable`]

  Configures setting of the generation file set name. Generation file sets provide a means for handling files that are continuously growing during the lifetime of a server. Server statistics are a typical example for such files. Generation file sets provide access to a set of files used to store the actual data. At any time at most one element of the set is being written to. The type given specifies when and how data will be directed to a new element of the set. This way, information stored in elements of a file set that are currently unused are available for administrative operations without the risk of disturbing the operation of ntpd. (Most important: they can be removed to free space for new data produced.)

  Note that this command can be sent from the ntpq(1) program running at a remote location.

  `name`

    This is the type of the statistics records, as shown in the statistics command.

  `file` filename

    This is the file name for the statistics records. Filenames of set members are built from three concatenated elements prefix, filename and suffix:

  Attribute | Description
  prefix | This is a constant filename path. It is not subject to modifications via the filegen option. It is defined by the server, usually specified as a compile-time constant. It may, however, be configurable for individual file generation sets via other commands. For example, the prefix used with loopstats and peerstats generation can be configured using the statsdir option explained above.
  filename | This string is directly concatenated to the prefix mentioned above (no intervening ‘/’). This can be modified using the file argument to the filegen statement. No `..` elements are allowed in this component to prevent filenames referring to parts outside the filesystem hierarchy denoted by prefix.
  suffix | This part is reflects individual elements of a file set. It is generated according to the type of a file set.

  `type` typename

    A file generation set is characterized by its type. The following types are supported: // The following are tables only because indent lists cannot be // nested more than 2 deep.

  Attribute | Description
  `none` | The file set is actually a single plain file.

  `pid`

  One element of file set is used per incarnation of a ntpd server. This type does not perform any changes to file set members during runtime, however it provides an easy way of separating files belonging to different ntpd(8) server incarnations. The set member filename is built by appending a ‘.’ to concatenated prefix and filename strings, and appending the decimal representation of the process ID of the ntpd(8) server process.

  `day`

  One file generation set element is created per day. A day is defined as the period between 00:00 and 24:00 UTC. The file set member suffix consists of a ‘.’ and a day specification in the form YYYYMMdd. YYYY is a 4-digit year number (e.g., 1992). MM is a two digit month number. dd is a two digit day number. Thus, all information written at 10 December 1992 would end up in a file named prefix filename.19921210.

  `week`

  Any file set member contains data related to a certain week of a year. The term week is defined by computing day-of-year modulo 7. Elements of such a file generation set are distinguished by appending the following suffix to the file set filename base: A dot, a 4-digit year number, the letter W, and a 2-digit week number. For example, information from January, 10th 1992 would end up in a file with suffix 1992W1.

  `month` | One generation file set element is generated per month. The file name suffix consists of a dot, a 4-digit year number, and a 2-digit month.
  `year` | One generation file element is generated per year. The filename suffix consists of a dot and a 4 digit year number.
  `age`$$ | This type of file generation sets changes to a new element of the file set every 24 hours of server operation. The filename suffix consists of a dot, the letter a, and an 8-digit number. This number is taken to be the number of seconds the server is running at the start of the corresponding 24-hour period.

  `link` | `nolink`

    It is convenient to be able to access the current element of a file generation set by a fixed name. This feature is enabled by specifying `link` and disabled using `nolink`. If link is specified, a hard link from the current file set element to a file without suffix is created. When there is already a file with this name and the number of links of this file is one, it is renamed appending a dot, the letter C, and the pid of the ntpd server process. When the number of links is greater than one, the file is unlinked. This allows the current file to be accessed by a constant name.

  `enable` | `disable`

    Enables or disables the recording function. Information is only written to a file generation by specifying `enable`; output is prevented by specifying `disable`.

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