1 = Installation instructions =
5 This software should build on any operating system conformant to
6 POSIX.1-2001 and ISO/IEC 9899:1999 (C99). In addition, the operating
7 system must have an ntp_adjtime(2) call. Also, it must support the
8 IPv6 API defined in RFC 2493 and RFC 2553. Finally, it must support
9 iterating over active UDP interfaces via getifaddrs(3) or some
12 You can browse a summary of differences from legacy NTP here:
14 https://docs.ntpsec.org/latest/ntpsec.html
16 There are some prerequisites. Libraries need the binary installed
17 to run and in addition, the development headers installed to build.
19 We need pthreads (It's optional in POSIX)
20 We need OpenSSL != 1.1.1a (1.1.1a has a fatal bug)
21 NTS needs TLS1.3 or newer.
23 === The short version ===
25 If you are on a Debian or Ubuntu distribution that uses apt-get, or on
26 a Fedora or RedHat distribution that uses yum or dnf, or a Suse
27 distribution that uses yast or zypper, or Gentoo, you can use the
30 In that case, run ./buildprep -n to see what needs to be installed as
31 prerequisites on your system. In order that we have a single point of
32 truth about package requirements, much information about
33 installable-package names that used to live in this file has moved to
36 If you are using other distributions or OSes, such as macOS, Solaris,
37 or *BSD, you will have to install the build prerequisites by hand on
38 your system. Read the buildprep script to get an idea what packages
41 buildprep does not attempt to install dependencies for optional
42 components like ntpviz or building documentation unless asked. See
43 buildprep --help for details on available options. psutil may require
44 different packages depending on whether your base Python version is
49 Python 2.x, x >= 6, or Python 3.x, x >= 3::
50 Required to build, and for various scripts such as ntpviz (but see
51 the guidance for packagers in devel/packaging.adoc). Our Python code
52 has been written polyglot to run with either Python 2 or Python 3.
53 Note that you will need both the ordinary Python installation and
54 Python dev tools, if your OS makes such a distinction.
56 If you are running on a distro with no `python` executable, you will
57 need to run waf as `python3 waf` rather than `./waf`. You will also
58 need `python3 waf configure --pyshebang=/usr/bin/env python3` or similar.
60 Some OS distros won't find our installed python libraries.
61 More info in README-PYTHON.
64 Required for ntpviz when using Python version 2.6
65 Install with pip: pip install argparse
68 Optional for ntpviz. Allows running with ionice()
69 Debian: python-psutil or python3-psutil
70 Ubuntu: python-psutil or python3-psutil
71 Fedora/CentOS: python-psutil or python3-psutil
72 Gentoo: dev-python/psutil
73 SLES: python-psutil or python3-psutil
76 If you are building to supply Stratum 1 time service (that is, with
77 refclocks linked in) you may find that you need the sys/timepps.h
78 file to be installed, depending on which refclocks you enable.
79 This won't be necessary for pure client (Stratum 2 or higher)
83 You will need an AsciiDoc processor to make HTML and/or manual pages from
84 the documentation masters. The supported processors, in order of
85 preference, are asciidoctor, asciidoc(-py3)/a2x, and asciidoc3/a2x3.
88 Note: you need asciidoctor 1.5.8 or newer. Otherwise, use asciidoc or
90 Debian/Ubuntu: asciidoctor (Debian 10+, Ubuntu 19.04+)
91 Fedora: rubygem-asciidoctor (Fedora 32+)
92 Gentoo: app-text/asciidoctor
96 Note: you need asciidoc 8.6.8 or newer. Alternatively, use asciidoctor
98 Debian/Ubuntu: asciidoc
99 Fedora/CentOS: asciidoc
100 Gentoo: app-text/asciidoc
104 Note: you need asciidoc 3.0.2 or newer. Alternatively, use asciidoctor
105 or asciidoc. There are currently no distro packages of asciidoc3.
106 However, upstream provides deb, pip and rpm packages.
108 Local copy of DocBook stylesheets:
109 Optional: Prevents documentation build failures when your Internet is down
110 Debian/Ubuntu: docbook-xsl
111 Fedora/CentOS: docbook-xsl-stylesheets
112 Gentoo: app-text/docbook-xsl-stylesheets
113 SLES: docbook-xsl-stylesheets - pulled in by `asciidoc`
116 Optional, used by ntpleapfetch
118 == Basic Installation ==
120 These are generic Unix installation instructions. Some notes on
121 specific platforms follow this section.
123 Under Unix, the simplest way to compile this package is:
125 1. `cd` to the directory containing the package's source code.
127 2. Run `./buildprep` as root to get your prerequisites installed.
129 3. Run `./waf configure` to configure the package for your system.
130 You may want to add configuration options after the verb 'configure';
131 see below. NOTE: if you will be using any local reference clocks (GPS,
132 PTP, SHM, etc.) then you need to configure for them by running the
133 command: `./waf configure --refclock=all`.
135 4. Run `./waf build` to compile the package.
137 5. Run `./waf install` to install the programs and any data files and
140 6. You can uninstall cleanly by running `./waf uninstall` as root.
142 7. Look under "Boot script setup" in wscript for how to set up
143 boot time startup of ntpd; this will vary according to your
146 8. You can remove the program binaries and object files from the
147 source code directory by running `./waf clean`.
149 9. To also remove the files that `./waf configure` created (so you can
150 configure and compile the package for a different kind of
151 computer), run `./waf distclean`.
155 It may be necessary after installing on some systems (incl. Linux) to
156 rebuild the ld.so cache or equivalent if using the FFI library (default).
160 When building the NTPsec suite using gcc under Solaris, you may see
161 prototype-mismatch warnings involving adjtime(2). These warnings are
162 functionally harmless and can be ignored. They reflect an unfortunate
163 choice by Solaris not to const the function's first argument as do
164 other implementations.
168 The configuration system occasionally acts up during builds on new
169 platforms. If you see the message "Compilation check failed but
170 include exists!" this means that an attempt to compile a small test
171 program using the include header mentioned on the previous line
172 failed, but waf configure then found that despite this the header file
173 exists on your system.
175 When this happens, it is likely that the header has prerequisites
176 on your system that waf configure doesn't know about - that is,
177 other headers always need to be included before it in C programs.
178 Please report this as a bug, along with your platform details.
180 == Source build limitations ==
182 When you do an install from source, no attempt is made to generate an
183 /etc/ntp.conf for you. The reason is that we, the maintainers, can't
184 know what pool host you are authorized to use. If you have an existing
185 ntp.conf from a legacy version, you can expect it to work.
187 Due to a limitation of the Python distutils library, if you install
188 from the source distribution with prefix set to a value other than
189 /usr (in particular, if it's the default value /usr/local), that
190 prefix will be honored *only if the corresponding Python library
191 directory already exists*. Otherwise, under Linux, the install will
192 drop the ntp Python library in /usr/lib. This layout may violate the
193 Linux File Hierarchy Standard.
195 You should have neither issue if you install from an OS distribution's
198 == Installation Names ==
200 By default, `waf install` will install the package's files in
201 `/usr/local/bin`, `/usr/local/man`, etc. You can specify an
202 installation prefix other than `/usr/local` by giving waf the
203 option `--prefix=PATH`.
205 You should read the section "Path problems with the test tools" in
206 devel/testing.adoc before setting a non-default prefix.
208 There is a separate `--destdir` option that changes the root of the
209 entire installation hierarchy, prepending all paths. It defaults to `/`.
210 You might, say, use --destdir=/tmp/ntp for a test install to see what
211 the installation paths look like without running as root or touching
214 NB: --destdir is specified at install time, --prefix is specified
215 at configure time and saved until install time.
218 == Qualification testing ==
220 Details on how to qualify NTPsec if you've never used it before
221 are at devel/testing.adoc.
223 == Strict compatibility mode ==
225 There have been a handful of forward-incompatible changes from NTP Classic.
226 These are unlikely to affect normal operation. However, there is a configure
227 operation, --enable-classic-mode, that restores certain legacy behaviors. This
228 is not recommended, as it makes the code a little bulkier and slower.
230 Here's what it currently does:
232 * Reverts logging to the old format that designates clocks with magic
233 addresses rather than the driver shortname and unit number.
235 * Enables declaring generic-driver refclocks with the old magic-address
236 syntax (but the new syntax won't work for these, though it will for
239 * Reverts the default baudrate of the NMEA driver to 4800 (from 9600).
241 * Restores the old (non-RFC 3339) format of logfile timestamps.
243 Other behaviors may be added in future releases.
245 == Optional Features ==
247 The waf builder accepts `--enable-FEATURE` options to where FEATURE
248 indicates an optional part of the package. Do `waf --help` for a list
251 refclocks are enabled with `--refclock=<n1,n2,n3..>` or `--refclock=all`
252 `waf configure --list` will print a list of available refclocks.
254 === --enable-early-droproot ===
256 Drop root privileges as early as possible. This requires the refclock
257 devices to be owned by the same owner or group that ntpd will be
258 running under (most likely that group will be named "ntp") so that it
259 can still open the devices. This can be accomplished by adding
260 `GROUP="ntp"` or `OWNER="ntp"` to the udev rules that create the
261 device symlinks for the refclocks.
263 == Developer options ==
265 --disable-debug-gdb::
266 Disable GDB debugging symbols.
268 == Operation Controls ==
270 The waf builder recognizes the following options to control how it
274 Print a summary of the options to `waf configure`, and exit.
277 Print the version of waf used to generate the `configure`
280 == Cross-compiling ==
282 Set up a cross-compile environment for the target architecture. At minimum
283 it will need OpenSSL headers/libraries and Python headers/libraries.
285 Configure NTPSec with:
287 PYTHON_VERSION=2.7 PYTAG=cpython27 pyext_PATTERN="%s.so" PYTHON_LDFLAGS='-lpthread -ldl' \
288 ./waf configure --cross-compiler=/path/to/your/cross/cc \
289 --pythondir=/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages --pythonarchdir=/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages
291 There are also --cross-cflags and --cross-ldflags to supply the cross compiler
292 with appropriate values.
296 If you want to generate the ntpviz graphs regularly, add these lines to
301 53 * * * * cd /usr/local/src/NTP/ntpsec/ntpstats; ./ntpviz -p 1 -o day
302 45 11,23 * * * cd /usr/local/src/NTP/ntpsec/ntpstats; ./ntpviz -p 7 -o week