TimeKeeper Version 8

TimeKeeper Version 8.0.x

v8.0.31 - February 14, 2024

• Add tkctl action for the Grandmaster to trigger SNMP/syslog/email events on demand for testing and connectivity verification.
• Improve startup sync by detecting when other tools have stepped the clock during startup, particularly during system boot.
• Improve file handling under high load on Windows.
• Remove support for Windows Server 2012.
• If configuration file contains DOS newlines on non-Windows hosts, output error message and exit.
• Remove dependency on ifconfig for some NTP server configurations on Linux.
• For NICs with more interfaces than PHCs, track PHC ownership internally by the interface with sysfs PHC files present, rather than by other metrics.
• Improvements to encodepassphrase tool in cases where certain passphrase lengths were not being successfully decrypted.
• Identify source when mouse cursor hovers over a client in the clients Live Graph legend and add source-identity column to client Snapshot View table.

v8.0.30 - November 11, 2023

• Fix to allow Compliance to continue PDF generation when SQL database is corrupted.
• Update packaged Node.js to version 16.20.2.
• Update Node.js modules formidable to 3.5.1 and express to 4.18.2.
• Ensure PHCs are attached to root devices and not interface aliases.
• Add ability to send test alerts from the web interface on non-grandmasters.
• Add support for RHEL 8 specific RPMs, including SHA256 digests.
• Add security enhancements regarding HTTPS headers and hyperlinks.
• Upgraded Bootstrap to v5.3.2 for documentation.

v8.0.29 - September 25, 2023

• Add DISABLE_CLOCK_STEER that prevents TimeKeeper from steering clocks, including the system clock.
• Remove unused Node.js modules, including jquery, cryptiles, extend, jsonpointer, json-schema and tough-cookie.
• Have tkctl warn when setting a user account to enabled with an empty password.
• Add official support for Amazon Linux 2023.
• Preserve AAA configuration across TimeKeeper installations on first-generation Grandmasters.
• Improved the input validation in the web interface for Compliance report parameters and PTP/NTP servers.
• Upgraded components used by the TimeKeeper documentation web interface for increased security.
• Add ENABLE_PAM_AUTH to authenticate a web interface user with the PAM user name and password from the Linux host. This feature enables LDAP authentication in the web interface on Linux.
• Include FQDN in syslog messages rather than just hostname.

v8.0.28 - May 19, 2023

• Fixed a vulnerability that could allow remote code execution via the web interface if a valid login session and a specifically formed URL are supplied.
• Fixed an issue where certain scenarios can cause the web UI login page to hang with status “Authenticating…”.
• Fixed an issue that prevented saving large configurations in the web interface.
• Fixed an issue that prevented removal of network interfaces from bonds in the web interface.
• Add ability to hard power cycle a Grandmaster from the web interface, tkctl and timekeeper_cli.
• Changed default IPMI passwords for new Gen 2 Grandmaster to be unique per appliance, please see Quick Start for more information.
• Enable serial console access on new Gen 2 Grandmaster.

v8.0.27 - November 9, 2022

• If a source becomes erratic and triggers LOWCPU mode for steering, ensure it returns to normal processing once it stabilizes.
• Fix bug when downloading active series as CSV from web interface by first enclosing fields containing commas in quotes.
• Allow for faster rejection of hardware timestamps in cases where NIC drivers behave erratically.
• Fixed issue to allow PPS output when GPS antenna is not connected.
• Resolve login issue with TimeKeeper Client or Server, when ‘%’ used in web GUI passwords.
• Increase the timeout allowed for web logins for cases where RADIUS/TACACS+ servers are in use but unavailable and local authentication is needed.
• Fix to allow Interface Description to be saved correctly in web UI.
• Fixed issue on Grandmasters that caused hostname to revert to ‘fsm’ on reboot.
• Fix bug where TimeKeeper was accepting a unicast announce for a multicast source.

v8.0.26 - August 18, 2022

• Upgrades to jQuery, jQuery UI versions used for the TimeKeeper web interface. This also includes minor usability improvements.
• Remove support for Internet Explorer (now EOL) when using the web interface. Microsoft Edge and other major browsers continue to be supported.
• Improve PDF viewing of Compliance reports on web interface.
• Use Form-Based Authentication for web GUI instead of Basic Authentication.
• TimeKeeper web interface now delays repeated invalid login attempts.
• Fix for the Compliance tab where reports were not displayed when a large number of Compliance reports exist.
• Reduce CPU load when handling high numbers of PTP/NTP requests and increase PTP/NTP serving performance.
• Recover from very rare case where invalid network delay measurements could prevent proper clock steering.
• TimeKeeper CPU load reduced by ensuring more consistent hardware TX timestamps.
• Fixed bug that would allow Sourcecheck to reject the last active source if it looks invalid rather than retaining it (introduced in 8.0.23).
• Remove dependency on host openssl configuration when encrypting SNMP passphrase.
• Compliance generate utility provided to allow Compliance reports to be generated outside TimeKeeper. See the compliance_generate documentation for details.
• Add support for the automotive PTP profile.
• Fix to retain the specified web management port in timekeeper.conf when set to 8080, now that the default value is -1 (introduced in 8.0.25).

v8.0.25 - April 29, 2022

• Web GUI now defaults to HTTPS using provided self-signed certificate. HTTP defaults to off unless WEB_MANAGEMENT_PORT is specified and not set to -1.
• Add support for tracking revision history and events on TimeKeeper Grandmasters and software installations. See the alerting documentation for details.
• Improve accuracy by eliminating oscillations that can occur with lower accuracy time sources.
• Direct support for Hyper-V provided time on Linux where available, such as in Azure cloud environments.
• Detect and alert when sustained levels of GNSS jamming indicates that holdover accuracy may be reduced, should it be needed.
• Add plot for TimeKeeper Grandmaster satellite, jamming, and signal strength data on TimeKeeper Grandmasters and clients that collect their management data.
• Add support for Layer 2 PTP on Linux.
• Fixes spacing on Compliance report PDF headers.
• Fix for saving large configuration files through the web interface with Node.js version 14.16.0.
• Fix for building Compliance reports for clients with high update rates and rare accumulated log file sizes.
• Fix to prevent TimeKeeper Grandmasters from using software rather than hardware timestamps on 1G interfaces in some scenarios.
• Remove support for SLES 11.
• Add official support for Windows Server 2022.

v8.0.24 - January 28, 2022

• Handle the case of NTP servers that do not respond to all requests more gracefully.
• Faster and more accurate slewing during initial startup with large offset for greater accuracy sooner.
• High accuracy sync happens much faster when hardware timestamps are being used.
• Update for TimeKeeper Grandmasters to address polkit’s pkexec vulnerability (CVE-2021-4034).

v8.0.23 - December 13, 2021

• Support TLS 1.3 on the web interface where it’s available using the TLS_VERSION option.
• Fix bug displaying client data in Timing Quality live graphs in web interface, introduced in 8.0.22.
• Enable hardware and software timestamping for Windows platforms that support it (Windows Server 2022 and Windows 11 or later).
• Add WEB_MANAGEMENT_TIMEOUT to support a configurable session timeout for the TimeKeeper web interface.
• Add support for an unlimited number of network interfaces.
• Allow recovery and use of sources that have become otherwise unusable, for some very rare conditions.
• When using Sourcecheck allow for a faster failover between sources when one is found to be invalid. This retains better accuracy with remaining valid sources.
• Add to the list of known-unstable driver versions TimeKeeper automatically avoids to avoid causing device and kernel problems.
• Fix issue when updating license in place during downtime window so that it no longer requires a TimeKeeper restart.
• Update default password for admin account to “timekeeper”, and deprecate the old password “fsmlabs”. Note this new default will apply even if a downgrade is performed.
• Allow for more PTP multicast group memberships across more devices on TimeKeeper Grandmasters.
• When saving a configuration change via the web interface, don’t write options to timekeeper.conf that have default values or are otherwise redundant.

v8.0.22 - October 6, 2021

• Add INACTIVE_CLIENT_THRESHOLD to activate an alarm if a client is detected as inactive.
• Display Grandmaster type on status tab of web interface.
• Prevent hot-plug PHC device removal from potentially affecting processing of timing data.
• Deprecated support for the prebuilt TimeKeeper RPMs on SLES 11. SLES 11 remains a supported distribution, including installations using local RPMs built with the TimeKeeper .spec files.
• Provide a warning on the web interface if /etc/timekeeper.conf is not present/world readable on Linux as this can limit UI features.
• Format configuration option lists as tables, adding defaults, ranges, etc.
• Fix issue introduced in 8.0.20 that prevented network interfaces from showing up in the web UI on non-GM installations.
• The installer for Linux is no longer a static binary in order to run on a wider range of kernels.
• Display each source’s status on status tab of web interface.
• Update timekeeper_status.json to include data from all sources.
• Add user-definable names for sources and servers.
• Fixed issue where rsyslog was still using old hostname even after user changed hostname.

v8.0.21 - July 9, 2021

• Validate numeric option values are numeric and if not, send startup trap/syslog message with details.
• Reduce potential for short gaps in PTP source tracking with some GMs when the BMCA requires a clock change in hybrid mode.
• Fixed bug that could cause TimeKeeper crashes when sending management requests (introduced in 8.0.19).
• Fix issue introduced in 8.0.20 that prevented upgrades to TimeKeeper Grandmasters.

v8.0.20 - June 10, 2021

• Add tkctl tool for saving/restoring/managing TimeKeeper Grandmaster configurations. See the tkctl documentation for details.
• The configuration for the email relay host and max log age has moved on the Grandmaster web interface, to the “Manage Communication” subtab.
• Fix an issue that prevented basepackage upgrade when version 1.9 or earlier is installed.
• Update packaged Node.js to version 14.16.0.
• Remove support for CentOS/RHEL 5.
• Bug fix to ensure Grandmaster GUI loads after upgrade in some configurations.
• Add HTTPS_KEY_PASSPHRASE to support HTTPS in configurations where the private key is password protected.
• TimeKeeper’s encodesnmptrappassphrase tool has been renamed to encodepassphrase.
• On Windows, retain existing client data and log files when upgrading or reinstalling TimeKeeper.
• Add client search tool to simplify finding client graphs to plot in the TimeKeeper web interface.
• Enable animated Skymap view on TimeKeeper Grandmasters to show signal strength and GNSS visibility over time.
• Fix for plotting clients on the client live graphs in the web interface where the client is only delivering data over NTP (introduced in 8.0.17).
• Added a new section to show how TimeKeeper can work with Telegraf InfluxDB Grafana.
• Bug fix to accept absolute minimum value for SET_TIME_THRESHOLD.
• Fix Windows uninstaller to remove all files when TimeKeeper is running and delete the TimeKeeper service.
• On Linux, synchronize the hardware clock more frequently for out of band systems that rely on it.
• Faster configuration collection and tkstatus execution, especially on Windows. Also avoids potential timeouts displaying details in the web interface configuration tab.
• Correctly optimize hardware timestamp steering when the primary source is on a VLAN interface hosted on a bond.
• Fix memory leak on Windows when exchanging management data.

v8.0.19 - February 25, 2021

• Add SET_TIME_THRESHOLD to ease regulatory compliance, particularly in virtual environments with VM processing delays.
• Fix to allow skymap images to be displayed when using HTTPS.
• Fix to allow timekeeper_cli editing of the timekeeper.conf file on Grandmasters when RADIUS or TACACS+ is enabled.
• Allow more time for web logins for cases where slow or unresponsive RADIUS/TACACS+ servers are in use and local authentication fallback is needed.
• Less time required to startup and more accurate tracking when starting up.
• When a major/minor time source is primary provide a much faster startup that does not require slewing to the minor time first.
• Added a new FILESYNC method for sharing client data for monitoring that can retrieve all old data.
• Add ability to limit times over which client logs are shared.
• Now possible to restrict which client hosts data is shared to limit data transfers.
• Do not allow /31 netmasks (255.255.255.254) when configuring network interfaces on TimeKeeper Grandmasters.
• Prevent startup issues by validating host time and resetting it on startup if it’s earlier than 5 years before the release of TimeKeeper or greater than 30 years after the release.
• Incoming time that is outside of the 5 years before or 30 years after the release of TimeKeeper will be rejected to prevent clearly invalid time.
• Increase the delay before accessing a hot-plug PHC device to 1 second.
• Fix regression that reduced compliance data collected from Windows clients.

v8.0.18 - October 30, 2020

• Reduce GPS offset error under load with VelaSync and Gen 1 TimeKeeper Grandmasters. Issue does not affect Gen 2 TimeKeeper Grandmasters.
• Remove support for 32 bit Linux.
• Increase the number of network card clocks allowed from 16 to 50.
• Fix occasional failed send of announce packet under heavy load.
• Reduced overhead when handling PTP management messages which can reduce GPS sync errors.
• Fix for sourcecheck to prevent failover to inactive source.

v8.0.17 - August 11, 2020

• Fix for false alarms with GPS/GNSS receiver errors on Grandmasters.
• Reduced CPU consumption/overhead.
• Add MINALERTCOUNT to Compliance to only report clients that experienced a specified minimum number of alerts.
• Fix for HTTPS CSR generation that caused invalid attributes to be generated if no attributes were specified (introduced in 8.0.12).
• TimeKeeper web GUI now shows which source is primary over time.
• If the IFACE specified for a source does not exist, the source is not used.
• timekeeper.conf file on unix systems must be readable by non-root users.
• TimeKeeper process listing is now simplified.
• Support privilege-based remote authorization for user access. Please see “RADIUS/TACACS+ support” section about how authentication behavior has changed.
• Fix to allow all interfaces to be available in web GUI on Linux, including those that have not been assigned a network address.
• Solaris service management improvements for shutdown timeout and lockfile handling.
• Fix to avoid reporting stale TimeKeeper status in some cases.

v8.0.16 - May 29, 2020

• Revert so default behavior to send a PTP followup message if non-hardware sync timestamp was found, previously that was not default behavior.
• Allow source failover for more cases where time source data may be active but unusable.
• Changes to make Grandmaster GPS/GNSS tracking more resilient when under heavy load.
• Correct source port for PTP unicast messages. Error introduced in v8.0.12.
• Support PTP Peer-to-Peer delay mechanism (P2P).
• Fix for issue introduced in 8.0.14 that can cause periodic gaps in source tracking.
• Add ENABLE_NIC_BLACKLIST to automatically avoid unstable features known to be present in some drivers.
• Fix snapshot view for Windows GUI.
• Prevent slow memory consumption on systems with slow storage or high I/O load.

v8.0.15 - April 3, 2020

• Reduce overhead of serving telecom profile PTP clients a great deal.
• Fix for GPS/GNSS tracking when grandmasters are under heavy load.
• Provide clearer TimeKeeper service details when Windows is having resource management issues.
• Fix possible GPS/GNSS startup failure on Grandmasters.

v8.0.14 - March 9, 2020

• Improved accuracy of GPS/GNSS time source on TimeKeeper Grandmasters.
• Properly display hostnames that contain periods.
• Prevent spurious GNSS errors being reported on TimeKeeper Grandmaster G2s.
• Improved clock modeling which provides better accuracy.
• If the unicast PTP sync rate is less than 4 at startup, increase it temporarily to speed initial sync.
• Remove support for Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7.
• Reduced TimeKeeper CPU load when interacting with some buggy NIC drivers.
• Further improvement for hardware timestamping support under highly loaded systems.
• Fix for managing interfaces on hosts with high numbers (hundreds) of interfaces.
• Reduce overhead when tracking NTP and PTP client/server statistics under high load.
• Disable arcfour, 3des and blowfish ciphers for ssh access to TimeKeeper Grandmasters.
• Allow PTP traffic without requiring static routes on hosts providing invalid packet details.
• Protect web GUI from terminating Windows processes no longer owned by the web GUI.

v8.0.13 - January 7, 2020

• When user moves source within web-GUI list, have its “UNAPPLIED” label move with it.
• Add optional support for higher accuracy hardware timestamping on Linux.
• Fix web GUI so that the MAJORTIME setting follows the referenced source when re-ordering sources.
• Fix for TimeKeeper Grandmasters to correct for rare log rotation issue under heavy disk usage.
• Fix bug introduced in 8.0.12 where wrong update time was stored in server’s client log for NTP clients.
• Allow more time for hardware timestamp acquisition when under high load, related to feature introduced in 8.0.12 allowing for high PTP packet rates.
• Allow TimeKeeper to associate PHC interfaces to more types of network device names.

v8.0.12 - November 8, 2019

• Permit mixing of HW and SW timestamps on Solarflare cards since some driver/linux kernel combinations cannot receive reliable hardware timestamps all the time.
• Permit whitespace in day-of-week list for compliance reports.
• Accept PTP packets from non-standard ports.
• Greater accuracy through more robust behavior when small numbers of hardware timestamps are missing/unavailable. Some clients may note rare missing PTP followup messages.
• Improved TimeKeeper GM1 and GM2 serving timestamp accuracy.
• Reduced memory and CPU overhead in multicast PTP environments.
• Improved accuracy from better noise rejection when estimating clock frequency.
• Improved accuracy immediately after TimeKeeper starts.
• Fix for skymap feature on time serving appliances, bug was introduced in v8.0.11.
• Increase allowed temperature range for Grandmaster devices to 105F.
• Resolve rare bug where RAID status may not be reported on TimeKeeper Grandmasters, introduced in v8.0.9.
• Only log re-resolving DNS names for NTP sources when the IP address changes or VERBOSE_NTP is set.
• TimeKeeper no longer includes the Symmetricom BC637 and Spectracom TSync drivers, instead it will use versions installed on the host with the SYMMETRICOM_DRIVER_PATH/SPECTRACOM_DRIVER_PATH options.
• Add exclusion of clients from compliance reports based on regex with EXCLUDEDCLIENTSET.
• Support client-requested rates for telecom-profile PTP sync and announce messages. Rates can be specified at the client and are obeyed by the server. (See note for PTPSERVERSYNCRATE.)
• Changed minimum packet rate from 1 packet every 60 seconds to 1 packet every 64 seconds.
• Reduce TimeKeeper’s memory requirements when tracking time sources.
• The HTTPS CSR generation process on TimeKeeper Grandmasters can now specify subject alternative names.
• Allow up to 32 IP addresses per network interface.
• Add official support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15.
• Display hostname in web GUI for clients as well as Grandmasters.

v8.0.11 - June 25, 2019

• Improved accuracy when hardware timestamps are not available for NTP/PTP.
• Improved clock modeling accuracy and noise rejection.
• Ensure TimeKeeper service path is quoted in Windows services.
• Improved delay modeling and rejection of noisy packets/samples.
• TimeKeeper will not reinitialize network interface hardware time stamping if it is already enabled.
• Detect and warn in web interface about network interfaces with addresses on the same subnet.
• Allow empty challenge password when creating a Certificate Signing Request on TimeKeeper Grandmasters.
• Fix regression (introduced in v8.0.10) that disabled SNMP on reboot of GM.
• When license file is replaced/updated it is no longer necessary to restart TimeKeeper if only the expiration date changed. If the features/options have changed in the license TimeKeeper will alert that a restart will be automatically performed when the previous license expires.
• Add official support for Red Hat 8.
• Improved accuracy on Windows Server 2016 and 2019.
• Specifying SERVENTP_IFACE no longer affects NTP sources and their intended interface.
• Fix communication issue when TimeKeeper is started without access to DNS resolution and using hostnames in source definitions.
• Fix for Linux kernel bug on some Skylake processors that resulted in bad clock frequency which resulted in constantly increasing offsets.
• When hot-plug PHC devices are added pause before using them to work around race conditions in some PHC drivers.

v8.0.10 - April 15, 2019

• TimeKeeper will continue startup even if DNS resolution of a configured PTP/NTP server fails.
• Disable unused services on TimeKeeper Grandmasters.
• Compliance can now report on issues only related to a client’s primary source with the ONLYREPORTPRIMARY option.
• Avoid an error with SERVENTP_IFACE when used on a bonded interface that also has IP aliases assigned.
• Fix regression (introduced in v8.0.9) that prevented Compliance report numbers > 50 from being used.
• Fix memory leak when periodically building set of clients and sources for Compliance to analyze.
• Add hostname and date to problem report name to aid in identification and filename uniqueness.
• Add support to optionally output tkstatus information without any truncation. When tkstatus is output without truncation, one-way delay values are also displayed.
• Fix NTP server performance regression, did not affect accuracy but just queries/second.
• Provide more hardware timestamping support for interfaces with custom controls and VLANs not related to the underlying device name.
• Faster startup when primary time source is unavailable and a secondary source must be used.
• Alert when an impossible or likely erroneous UTC/TAI offset change is seen from a PTP Grandmaster.
• Add support for NTP authentication on Windows.
• If the host time is detected too far in the past, set it to known good value before starting TimeKeeper licensing checks.
• Fix certain out of disk situations that could cause a partial factory reset on Grandmasters.

v8.0.9 - February 22, 2019

• Windows installer and uninstaller improvements.
• Accuracy improvements due to improvements in frequency prediction.
• Correct previous fix PPS output for limited number of TimeKeeper Enterprise Gen 1 Grandmasters that had reversed polarity output PPS. Fixes PPS output error on G1 Grandmasters introduced in v8.0.7.
• TimeKeeper Enterprise Gen 2 Grandmasters now include cable delay in output PPS.
• Save latest TimeKeeper start-up information for improved support. The file timekeeper_init or timekeeper_init.log for Windows is saved in the log directory when TimeKeeper starts timing updates.
• Fix for sending SNMP traps from TimeKeeper on Windows 2012 and earlier.
• Fix hardware timestamps for Solarflare cards using bonding/VLANs on older (pre hardware timestamp) Linux kernels.
• Add support for hardware timestamping on Linux teaming interfaces.
• GLONASS satellite system is no longer enabled by default.
• Enable SBAS and QZSS systems when GPS is configured on TimeKeeper Enterprise Gen 2 Grandmaster.
• Support hardware timestamps on VLANs even in cases where kernel-provided details are incomplete.
• Compliance now delivers PDFs directly in the TimeKeeper web interface for easier handling of audit data.
• Compliance performance improvements in delivering access to audits and more detailed Excel exports.
• Provide clearer summaries of client warning and alert details in Compliance audits.
• Don’t let corrupted network-configuration file on Grandmaster prevent network configuration from showing up in web UI.
• Allow problem reports to be generated in user specified directory.
• Fix to prevent extra logging when hot-plug network device events are interrupted.
• Add official support for Windows Server 2019.

v8.0.8 - November 20, 2018

• Automatically disable remote user authentication when all servers are deleted, prevent it from being enabled if no servers are defined, and disable the other (RADIUS or TACACS+) when one is enabled.

v8.0.7 - November 2, 2018

• Add support for hot-plug network devices so that their clocks are steered properly.
• Fixes for old Solarflare API (RHEL 5 and similar systems).
• Fix to not report “Unknown” oscillator type on GrandMasters when GPS/Oscillator is not primary/active time source.
• Fix PPS output for limited number of TimeKeeper Enterprise Gen 1 GrandMasters that had reversed polarity output PPS.
• Fix for possibility of spurious (momentary) reporting of TimeKeeper Enterprise Gen 2 GrandMasters in holdover when they are not.
• Have timekeeper_cli change hostname immediately rather than upon reboot.
• LOWCPU mode will be enabled automatically for high-noise time sources that cause excessive CPU use.
• Improved holdover performance through better clock modeling.
• Be more restrictive during shutdown to only kill TimeKeeper’s web service processes.
• In addition to “M”, recognize “MD5” as representing the MD5 algorithm in the NTP key file.
• Add support for sending SNMP traps from TimeKeeper on Windows, in addition to reporting events in the Windows event log.
• Support “vsyscall=none” kernel parameter on Linux systems.
• Remove Save configuration and Restore configuration from Grandmasters.
• No longer force W32Time to use NoSync, instead warn if invalid configurations are detected.
• Provide additional HTTPS headers for enhanced web security.
• Fixes to record management/monitoring responses from different types of clients.
• Updated SNMP MIB revision and last-updated fields.
• Removed automated one-click upgrade on GrandMasters due to policy changes. Upgrades of TimeKeeper and the basepackage are done via the TimeKeeper GUI as before.
• Fix GUI discrepancy where PTP servers with management queries/responses disabled would display the options as enabled.
• Add support for relay hostname with hyphens when entered in the Grandmaster’s web GUI.
• Compliance allows custom start and end times and reporting only for specific days of the week.
• Fix regression (introduced in v8.0.0) so that TimeKeeper includes hostname in Subject header of email alerts.
• Grandmasters now properly alert when inlet temperature goes out of range.
• Include more detailed GPS state on Grandmasters and fix possibility of not reporting holdover state on status page.
• Fix regression (introduced in v8.0.0) so that TimeKeeper on Windows once again uses the specified IFACE.
• Fix regression (introduced in v8.0.0) so that user can update the HTTPS certificate on a Grandmaster.

v8.0.6 - August 26, 2018

• Fix occasional lost packets due to Linux errors that mis-identify network interfaces. This manifested as lost PTP sync for brief periods of time.
• Request more time from Solaris Service Management Facility to avoid TimeKeeper being put into maintenance mode in some situations.
• Fix for hardware timestamps on bonded VLANs with Solarflare cards.
• Remove requirement for TSC as the only clocksource.
• Fix memory leak in clock modeling. This was introduced in v8.0.3.
• Prevent tkstatus.bat error messages when run as non-admin user on Windows.
• Fix Compliance issue that prevented clients from having all of their sources included in audits.
• Fix the GUI on TimeKeeper Grandmasters when deleting bonds and VLANs.

v8.0.5 - August 2, 2018

• Fix for PTP servers and clients when asked to relay local timing client data to remote hosts.

v8.0.4 - July 30, 2018

• report_problem.sh, when instructed to upload the problem report, will attempt HTTPS first then fall back to FTP if HTTPS upload fails.
• Fix occasional failed send of packets on Grandmaster hardware.
• Fix for Grandmaster 10/25G interfaces with VLANs on bonds. Previously this would revert to incorrect active-active rather than the correct active-passive state. Now proper active-passive is configured.
• Improved outlier rejection. During periods of rare but large network noise/jitter, TimeKeeper will better reject inaccurate data and maintain time more accurately until network noise decreases.
• Fix PTP telecom profile configurations where the wrong network interface was selected by TimeKeeper when it was not the default route.
• Updated Grandmaster antenna location map to work with recent Google maps API changes.
• Improved accuracy from better filtering that results in more precise frequency estimate.
• Fix labeling of Compliance reports via web interface from GMT to UTC.
• Fix for VLAN hardware timestamps and specific fix for Solarflare VLAN and bonded interfaces.
• Fix for hardware timestamp cards that can only timestamp PTP - Solarflare and Broadcom among others.
• Make /var/log/messages readable by admin on Grandmasters.
• When displaying weekly/monthly/yearly Compliance audits, provide more clearly empty daily audit summary for cases where there are no active clients/sources for that day.
• Fix numbering for the sourceQuality and sourceState SNMP traps so they’re more easily matched to the source with the error.
• Bug fix for possible crash when exchanging management data.
• Fix for PTP servers delivering unicast traffic in some non-IPv6 environments.

v8.0.3 - June 25, 2018

• TimeKeeper now catches installation errors on startup by validating the install and will not start if installed files have been modified.
• TimeKeeper will no longer respond to its own PTP GET requests. This avoids unnecessary network traffic.
• Add support for Grandmasters to send email using an external SMTP relay.
• Compliance reporting speed improvement due to many optimizations - in some cases a 15x improvement in report generation time.
• Faster Compliance startup. Previously generating lists of clients on startup consumed a great deal of time with 10,000+ clients. Now it is much faster (on the order of seconds).
• LOWCPU option to prioritize low CPU consumption for a given source. This will reduce accuracy and outlier rejection to some degree but greatly reduce CPU consumption.
• Improved accuracy and reduced CPU consumption for higher sync rates (higher than 5 updates per second) on NTP/PTP sources.
• Reduce the number of packets sent over the network when hardware timestamps are available since ‘pre-cache’ packets are not necessary.
• Problem reports can now be launched from timekeeper_cli on grandmasters.
• Added alerting on Grandmasters for early warnings about possible disk failures.
• Removed size restrictions on previous Compliance audits when converting data to SQL database.

v8.0.2 - June 4, 2018

• Compliance generates reports faster due to improvements in PDF and HTML generation. In some cases a 4x reduction in time needed per report.
• On startup log a message when a global parameter is specified for a specific server or source to indicate that it is being ignored and is incorrectly configured.
• Previously TimeKeeper would query network cards listed in AVOID_IFACES for very basic information about them. This release no longer does that to reduce interaction with AVOID_IFACES network cards.
• Add option (PTP_OVERRIDE_BC_PRIORITY) for PTP servers that allow overriding the upstream PTP priority 1 and 2 fields with configured fields when in boundary clock mode.
• Allow TimeKeeper Grandmaster to be queried for system parameters via SNMP (see the “SNMP MIB” section for details).
• Early detection (up to several months) and reporting of a leap second pending when advertised by GNSS systems for generation 2 TimeKeeper Grandmasters.
• Allow deletion of VLANs from the web interface of TimeKeeper Grandmaster devices.
• Fix issue preventing recent syslog content from being viewable in the web GUI on TimeKeeper Grandmasters.
• Allow Grandmaster admin user to run tcpdump.
• Allow ENABLE_MANAGEMENT_QUERY and ENABLE_MANAGEMENT_RESPONSE to be set on a per PTP source/server basis for finer control on which interfaces and PTP sources/servers exchange management data.
• Fix single-OID SNMP query of per-source data so that it agrees with the results of a walk. Previously, the leaves corresponded to source numbers (minus one); now, the leaves are consecutively numbered and one must inspect the sourceNumber.
• Added GNSS and timestamp-type SNMP OIDs for the current source and on a per-source basis.
• Fix web UI so that it allows -1 for the web management port (this disables HTTP access while still allowing HTTPS).
• TimeKeeper will detect and stop other time sync daemons when TimeKeeper is configured to control the clock. It will not permanently disable any other time sync services but will stop running programs.
• Add configuration option ENABLE_COMPLIANCE_DNS to switch on or off DNS resolution for compliance audits. Improves performance with DNS off for compliance reports.
• Grandmaster system image save/restore now does not save/restore the device’s serial number.
• Grandmaster will now alert when it fails internal health checks. These alerts will be logged wherever configured. See the “grandMasterFaultTrap” section for details.
• Make problem report collection easier when the system running TimeKeeper has an invalid network configuration.
• Handle longer CLIENTSET values better.
• Fix issue where specified TTL setting may not be applied to non-IPv6 PTP sockets.
• Compliance generates reports more frequently for intraday checks as well as faster configuration, startup, test cycles and deployment.
• IPv6 support is required only if an IPv6 source or server is configured.

v8.0.1 - April 17, 2018

• Faster start of Windows 2008 in some cases. Windows 2008 must send NTP queries slower and cannot startup as quickly so do not attempt to use too many samples which delays startup.
• Compliance tab will now show estimated time until all audits are complete and show how long processing of a single daily audit requires.
• Fix ‘stripdata’ tool for reducing size of stored data files to handle additional column of data that was recently added.
• Compliance now includes the report number in addition to title in the header of generated audits.
• Allow user to request sync error threshold alerts to be sent only for the primary source
• Reduced number of sockets for PTP and NTP sources. This reduced overhead a great deal on grandmasters and systems serving time.
• TimeKeeper will now detect when it is instructed to use a NIC that does not have a valid IP address and report the error.
• TimeKeeper, on a TimeKeeper Grandmaster, more tightly controls which interface it replies to requests on. This ensures extra replies are not sent on incorrect interfaces which avoids unnecessary and incomplete ARP requests.
• Remove PTP logmessageinterval workaround in announce messages. Previously TimeKeeper would advertise a lower message rate than it actually used to support some buggy PTP clients that timed out earlier than they should. Now TimeKeeper correctly advertises how often it sends announce messages.
• Improve behavior with higher sync rates by not waiting for hardware timestamps or software timestamps for transmit when they won’t be available (no hardware timestamp hardware available and software TX timestamps when using unicast messages).
• Allow user to request sync error threshold alerts to be sent only for the primary source.
• Added Excel file export facility from compliance_query for compliance data.
• Windows service will be stopped if the TimeKeeper application stops for 5 or more minutes.
• Force the displayed total time spent in a warning/alert state to 0.0 when building weekly/monthly/yearly Compliance audits that have no clients to report in the audit window.
• Compliance can now capture and report on upstream accuracy from NTP-only non-TimeKeeper clients.
• Fix Compliance issue with capturing alerts at the end of the UTC day.

v8.0.0 - March 16, 2018

• Upgrades, speedup, improvements to TimeKeeper Compliance. SQL database access to reports, much faster report generation, more reliable operation, faster startup and initial reports. See Compliance documentation for details
• TimeKeeper web GUI now supports HTTPS even when not on a TimeKeeper Grandmaster, see web configuration for details
• Add IPv6 support on Linux for software-only installs of TimeKeeper (not on grandmasters)
• Logging of the sum of all time error between a client and multiple upstream servers for recording of “time error budget”. This is the sum of accuracy for each time source upstream until true UTC source is reached. See the documentation for more information.
• Previously some upgrade paths on grandmasters did not update all the NIC drivers. This release corrects that so NIC drivers are always properly updated to the latest version.
• SERVENTP_IFACE still binds to device, but socket will not show as bound to specific IP address in netstat.

TimeKeeper Version 7

TimeKeeper Version 7.2.x

v7.2.18 - April 16, 2018

• Bug fix for possible crash when using ENABLE_DETECT_ASYMMETRY
• Prevent possible crash when processing invalid PTP management data
• Prevent crash when trying to manage Solarflare UUID filtering on systems with large routing tables

v7.2.17 - March 5, 2018

• Fix for static routes on bonded interfaces on grandmasters. Previously static routes could be lost/ignored on startup on bonded interfaces, fixed in this release.
• Fix asymmetry detection/reporting, previously would not report correct values
• Make log rotation behave more intuitively than what the logrotate utility provides. When changing ‘maxage’ to a smaller number logrotate will leave old files in place. Now they’ll be properly deleted as one would expect.
• Add optional alert for sources that are non-primary when they stop responding for more than 3 minutes
• Fix cabledelay parameter by correcting inverted logic (sign was previously reversed)
• GrandMaster serial number printed at login prompt for easy reference
• Updates to take advantage of latest basepackage (v1.12) and updated Spectre/Meltdown fixes
• Add support to allow the logging directory to be changed on Windows

v7.2.16 - February 14, 2018

• Changes to handle accuracy limitations/packet rate on Windows 2008
• Accuracy improvements in the presence of periodic jitter
• Removed limit on size of kernel routing table
• Add support for binding to a network interface on Windows
• On Windows, support all interface types, not just “Ethernet,” and ignore those without an IP address
• Better memory management for Compliance

v7.2.15 - January 19, 2018

• Allow transparent clock correction in sync or followup packets

v7.2.14 - January 12, 2018

• General security improvements to support CVE fixes on grandmasters
• Grandmaster factory reset will now reset the IPMI password to factory setting
• Reduced CPU use on SPARC
• Skip invalid packets/packet data when calculating NTP server egress delay
• Added WINROTATECOUNT option to set the number of TimeKeeper logs retained on Windows
• EULA updated
• Added source IDs to changedSourceTrap text
• Support VERBOSE_TCPDUMP on Windows
• Added source traceability information to timing log files
• Compliance/monitoring only reports configured sources via management query.
• Add license enablement for TimeKeeper on VelaSync Grandmasters, see basepackage release notes for details

v7.2.13 - November 27, 2017

• Fix Solarflare hardware timestamps for non-hardware timestamp Linux kernels
• Avoid truncated input in timekeeper_cli
• Bug fix for possible crash on Windows
• Update Microsemi BC635/BC637 driver for Linux
• Added DONOTROTATELOGSONSTARTUP option to prevent rotating logs when TimeKeeper starts up
• Changes to Linux logrotate config so older files are properly deleted, see section on service management for details
• Do not log NTP client data from clients that provide invalid data
• Improved support for 2nd generation TimeKeeper Enterprise Grandmaster
• Increase size of ARP table on grandmaster appliances
• Fixes for TAI/UTC offset when steering a NIC directly to a PTP source rather than host clock
• Improved accuracy for high rate PTP/NTP sources

v7.2.12 - October 18, 2017

• Reduce CPU overhead when not steering system clock
• Solaris/SPARC support no longer beta
• Updated documentation format
• Solaris/SPARC bug fix related to ptp management messages
• Fix PPS output on FSMLabs NIC for some configurations

v7.2.11 - October 2, 2017

• Optimization so PTP management responses are only send on interfaces they are received on
• Fixes for grandmasters that are under heavy disk/CPU load
• Solaris uninstaller and init script fixes
• Solaris 10/sparc 64-bit support (beta)
• Fix installer for Linux 32-bit systems
• Add raw one-way delay to existing one-way delay graph in web GUI
• Report Oscillator Type in the status report for grandmasters in web GUI
• Achieve initial sync faster on Windows 2008R2
• Only use well-known ports
• Add button to web GUI that sends a test alert
• Stop TimeKeeper on Windows 2016 faster
• Increase NTP response timeout to 750ms

v7.2.10 - August 7, 2017

• Solaris bug fix for clocks that need very large correction
• Improve accuracy of initial frequency and offset modeling at startup
• Enable global and per-server ENABLE_HWTSTAMPS configuration parameter
• Add ALLOW_UNREASONABLE_UTC configuration parameter to accept PTP sync messages whose offset is not known to be correct

v7.2.9 - July 26, 2017

• Allow silent install option to apply on Windows when an elevated context is used
• Fix bug with running timekeeper_cli on TimeKeeper Grandmasters (regression in 7.2.8)
• Remove time adjustments made by other applications on startup for faster TimeKeeper sync
• Prevent Solaris from interfering with TimeKeeper steering the time
• Reduce amount of PTP lease logging

v7.2.8 - July 24, 2017

• Improved clock modeling on Solaris
• Fix issue with collecting problem report data from the web on Windows (regression in 7.2.7)
• Add support for svcadm on Solaris
• Fix case of PTP source without an explicit IFACE setting not receiving intended PTP data
• Ensure PTP sync/announce messages use sequential sequence IDs when unicast clients are present

v7.2.7 - June 22, 2017

• Update for newer Velasync Rubidium units
• Fix for possibly slow startup on Velasync Rubidium units (regression in v7.2.6)
• Fix NTPSYNCERRORTHRESHOLD setting
• Fix and performance improvement for handling high management message volumes
• Support for Solaris 10/11 for 64-bit x86
• Bug fix of possible crash and performance improvement for handling high management message volumes
• Improved accuracy when steering NIC clock to remote time source directly
• TimeKeeper no longer needs gcc on install
• End support for RedHat 4, Centos 4 and older distributions
• Fix packaging issue on SLES 11 where too many files are included in the timekeeper-config RPM

v7.2.6 - June 7, 2017

• Fix for grandmasters to ensure consistent interface names
• Update to latest Spectracom Tsync driver
• Argument to installer “-s” will prevent installer on windows from requiring shell interaction
• More accurate hardware timestamps
• Improved accuracy and improved rejection of noise
• MONITORONLY source data is not exchanged via PTP management queries
• Fix for possible crash with many PTP clients/servers and high management message volume
• Add support for “tkstatus” with tkstatus.bat on Windows
• Fix for sources tracking PTPv1 grandmasters distributing non-UTC based time
• Fix command-line network config to, like web GUI, prevent invalid settings

v7.2.5 - April 23, 2017

• Fix case where sourcecheck might not detect all problems introduced in v7.2.3
• Fix case where multiple PTP sources/servers may not respond to management queries
• Support for more PPSDEV and PPSSOURCE combinations
• Support for u-blox devices and multiple GNSSes, such as Galileo and GLONASS
• Fix off-by-one error in management data exchange
• Support for /dev/ttyACM* devices
• All sockets default TOS to “low delay” now
• Restore serial number/base package version display on grandmaster hardware
• Fix for RHEL 4/5 system frequency bugs for faster TimeKeeper startup
• Fix occasional errors with updating temp files on Windows
• Package web authentication files with the timekeeper-config RPM
• Add official support for Windows Server 2016
• Handle management delivery of client data when very slow query rates are used
• Fix cases where PHC device could be used for an interface listed in AVOID_IFACES

v7.2.4 - March 6, 2017

• Work-around Linux kernel bug that incorrectly sets the commanded clock frequency
• Fix for possible false reporting of failed power supply on grandmaster appliances
• Fix RPM install so that system startup files are updated properly
• Resolve issue that stopped logging of NTP client data if we also receive PTP data about that client
• Fixes for Velasync/TimeKeeper Enterprise Grandmaster power supply failure detection
• Support for updated Velasync hardware
• Add support for SNMPv3 alerting on TimeKeeper clients
• Fix for Windows Event Source not being registered
• Add configurable ALERTTHRESHOLD and WARNINGTHRESHOLD for Compliance
• Disabled reverse path filtering on VLAN and bonded interface on TimeKeeper Grandmasters
• Allow PHC devices to be steered directly to upstream sources in additional cases
• Prevent sync error alerts when initial sync may not be complete

v7.2.3 - January 17, 2017

• Fixes for report problem script when disk space is limited
• Fixes for Solarflare specific ioctl when PHC unavailable for VLAN/bond interfaces
• service timekeeper status will now return error code when timekeeper is stopped
• Add support for Mellanox Infiniband hardware timestamps
• Document installation/operation requirements
• Fix for passwords that include %%
• Prevent umask from limiting TimeKeeper installation permissions
• Fix when upgrading grandmasters from very old installs (TimeKeeper 6.3.15 and prior)
• Allow disabled sync error threshold throttling with SYNC_ERROR_THRESHOLD_THROTTLE=0
• Add Description field for GM network interfaces
• Send syslog/SNMP trap/email message when bond active slave changes
• Documented required packages for TimeKeeper Compliance - font packages are required
• Avoid memory leak on Windows
• Fix for Windows service not restarting when controlled from the Windows Management Console

v7.2.2 - November 29, 2016

• Documentation updates
• Fix minimum TLS version supported configuration option
• Fix SNMP trap bug introduced in 7.2.1

v7.2.1 - November 22, 2016

• Detect NTP marker that NIST uses for unhealthy servers
• Drop support for obsolete Solarflare and Broadcom timestamp API
• Improved Solarflare support for Linux kernels lacking PHC support
• Allow more characters in SNMP community string
• Fix for possible crash on Ubuntu 16
• Fix for ‘check for new version’ on GUI
• Fix so old files will always be removed when rotated
• Register with windows as installed and register uninstaller
• Fix for network device re-ordering on Velasync/FSMLabs Enterprise Grandmaster
• Fixes for Linux PPS API support
• Default to sending NTP followup messages for improved accuracy when serving NTP
• Allow user to disable older TLS/SSL transports and ciphers for web GUI
• Provide better configuration error detection, improve configuration documentation
• Detect and alert more cases of other applications interfering with clocks on Linux

v7.2.0 - October 11, 2016

• Add support for ARM processors
• Add support for Linux PPS API
• Add support for Linux GPIO API for PPS input
• If PTP/NTP leap second indicator/warnings are received, propagate them to clients
• Improve local holdover oscillator disciplining from PTP/NTP
• Add support for multiple FSMLabs PPS input cards
• Add per-source ability to disable hardware timestamps
• Improve asymmetry detection logging
• Performance improvements for PTP management messages (far less overhead)
• Accuracy improvements for very low sync-rates
• Add NTP MD5 authentication support
• Alert when primary PTP source changes PTP reported clock class or time source
• Improved support for generic NMEA devices - GPS reception mapping
• Fix to correct projection on GPS reception sky map
• Like PTP, NTP servers can trigger alerts if any of the clients report a sync quality that exceeds NTPSYNCERRORTHRESHOLD
• Prevent TimeKeeper from allowing sources and servers on a bond interface member to avoid bond flapping
• On TimeKeeper Grandmasters, allow SSH to be enabled or disabled on specific network addresses
• Add TimeKeeper Compliance
• Send SNMP traps for system clock being driven by something other than TimeKeeper
• Always display GPS tab in web GUI if GPS generating data, not just for GM
• Add to web GUI per GPS, a Signal Strength tab and, on Antenna Locations map, a marker
• Add support for animation of skymap over time to GPS tab
• Update bundled Spectracom Tsync driver to 3.20
• SNMP MIB discrepancy fix - do not require a trailing 0 when querying the number of sources
• Add MONITORONLY configuration parameter
• Handle noncompliant NTP server (incorrect reference identifier)
• Steer Solarflare oscillators directly as before but in more system configurations
• Fix for data consistency issue under certain packet loads
• Detect and handle invalid PTPv1 UTC offset information
• Detect and handle occasional vendor-specific NIC API failures

TimeKeeper Version 7.1.x

v7.1.9

• Handle noncompliant NTP server (incorrect reference identifier)
• Steer Solarflare oscillators directly as before but in more system configurations
• Fix for data consistency issue under certain packet loads
• Detect and handle invalid PTPv1 UTC offset information
• Detect and handle occasional vendor-specific NIC API failures

v7.1.8

• Improved leap second performance when server is slewing
• To make sure the network is fully ready, systemd integration depends on network-online.target
• Correct reported header lengths for some types of PTP management packets

v7.1.7

• Fix asymmetry detection
• Add support for automatic steering and control of custom data processing NIC
• Handle case where Linux assigns high indexes to virtual network interfaces
• Fix case where two concurrent service start commands could run two instances of TimeKeeper
• Catch cases when some gps devices lose utc offset but don’t report it
• Fix log rotation of tcpdump files so they are not corrupted
• Alert when primary PTP source changes PTP reported clock class or time source
• Allow TTL for PTP sources to be editable in GUI
• Detect and support hardware timestamping on interfaces named like VLAN devices

v7.1.6

• Fix report_problem.sh for cases where the log directory is a link
• Improved accuracy for MS Windows systems
• Better integration with systemd-based Linux distributions
• TimeKeeper SNMP tree walks are now much faster
• Users can now edit timekeeper.conf from timekeeper_cli on TimeKeeper Grandmasters
• Sync error detection now alerts even if sources are so noisy they never achieve an initial sync
• Updated TimeKeeper Grandmaster/Velasync basepackage to 1.7 (for CVE-2015-7547)
• Allow more types of GPS-backed sources in the PPSDEV section in the TimeKeeper web GUI
• Improvements to automatic “health check” tools on TimeKeeper Grandmasters
• Fix for web GUI to allow configuration of PPS-based sources on specific network interfaces
• Documentation updates
• Force bonded interfaces on TimeKeeper Grandmasters to always be in active-passive mode
• Fix for TimeKeeper Grandmasters where VLANs on bonded interfaces can be removed unintentionally

v7.1.5

• Fix for polling PPS reads when system time is in the future on startup
• Improve performance for some low quality time sources
• Handle bad/invalid startup data from some GPS models
• Fix for some more than one PPS input configurations
• Fix for product/version/vendor info on map in some setups
• Fix problem in graphs of ‘client’ timing quality that occurred in some situations
• Fix issue with missing problem report data on Windows systems
• Fix for possible lost messages in log file on startup
• On install, any existing logrotate files will be left as they were on Linux
• “timekeeper_cli” allows per-interface routes and rules on bonded interfaces
• In Windows GUI, allow users to bind PTP servers and sources to network interfaces with spaces in their name
• On Windows, avoid packet processing delays and errors when handling many PTP packets.
• Fix for license expiry details reported via SNMP and with “tkstatus”
• Fix configuration GUI for PTP Sync Error Threshold.

v7.1.4

• HTTPS certificates on TimeKeeper Grandmasters are now signed using SHA256
• Fix configuration save issue when enabling “sourcecheck” feature on web GUI
• Fix configuration save issue when with some source and VLAN/bond configurations on web GUI
• Avoid false error in web GUI when user has configured MAJORTIME option on sources
• Status page uses satellites in ‘use’ not ‘view’ to avoid confusion
• More detailed jam indication reporting on FSM Enterprise Grandmaster/Velasync
• Improvements for ‘lowquality’ mode
• Faster correction of frequency on startup
• Add additional support for hardware timestamping on bonded VLAN interfaces

v7.1.3

• Specify gzip in logrotation for distributions that use other compression
• Fix for tkstatus and service timekeeper status showing wrong status occasionally
• Do faster queries for longer on startup for NTP sources to speed up initial sync
• Added more configurable options for PTP unicast clients
• Fix for startup condition that could cause lack of GPS sync
• SNMP community string is now configurable on TimeKeeper Grandmasters
• Fix for Symmetricom BC637 when GPS module not available
• Fix for older Intel NIC firmware that does not publish PPS events
• Fix for startup condition that could cause non-working output PPS on NetCard
• Set PTP traceable parameter in announce messages
• Performance improvement for tkcat
• Fix for tkcat regression that prevent it from reading older/compressed data
• Support for bonded interfaces on TimeKeeper Grandmasters
• Fixes to configuration interface on web GUI
• Support authentication with multiple TACACS+ servers
• Add support for a list of administrator users in addition to “admin” on TimeKeeper Grandmasters
• Improved timing graph performance
• Improved timing map performance, added update age control on map
• Faster service startup times when archiving existing TimeKeeper client data
• Improve PTP/NTP serving capacity
• Faster restart of TimeKeeper when rotating several log files

v7.1.2

• Fix for possibly NaN results in log files with very high accuracy sources
• Improvements to “self” time source for smoother local oscillator tracking
• Fix for frequency cross-check with “sourcecheck” feature
• Fix for TLV length field in some management messages that some PTP clients report as errors
• Improved holdover accuracy when using NTP/PTP as primary time source
• Updated TimeKeeper Enterprise Grandmaster/Velasync basepackage to 1.6 (new kernel, new drivers)
• Increase serving capacity of TimeKeeper Enterprise Grandmaster/Velasync combined with basepackage 1.6
• Fix possible livelock when hardware timestamps were explicitly disabled
• Fix possible reversed polarity on PPS output of FSMLabs NetCard
• Fix possibility of failed startup due to bad TSC rate
• Fix a potential case where GPS state could be incorrectly indicated very rarely on Velasync
• Faster initial sync of holdover oscillator on TimeKeeper Grandmaster/Velasync
• TimeKeeper can now store logs and data in a configurable location, not just /var/log on Linux
• Fix Windows documentation install issue
• Make problem report location more clear for Windows users
• Avoid case where “tkstatus” and “service timekeeper status” did not provide same output
• Work around PTP unicast lease handling restrictions with some Juniper routers

v7.1.1

• Improve NTP accuracy
• Fix possible crash on Windows with certain network devices
• Web timing graphs visibly disable a source when there’s no data for the selected time window
• Fix WEB_MANAGEMENT_IP bug that caused it to not work properly
• Fix graphing issue with some NTP servers that reply with spaces in their data
• Display Hardware Vendor on timing map for PTP nodes

v7.1.0

• Fix to allow disabling hardware timestamps again
• Add beta MIPS64 support
• Add Windows support
• Improvements in accuracy for all sources
• PTP client/server can now use syncrate up to 128 per second
• Support hardware timestamping on bonded interfaces
• GUI performance improvement when many sources are active
• PTP serving correction to properly advertise when in holdover state.
• Velasync/TimeKeeper Grandmaster output PPS will now match system time when operating in non-GPS mode
• Updates and Improvements to Timing Map

TimeKeeper Version 7.0.x

v7.0.7

• Fix status when tracking a Spectracom TSync card with 0 satellites
• Disable reverse-path filtering to allow PTP serving on misconfigured networks

v7.0.6

• Accuracy improvements for NTP/PTP client mode
• Improve accuracy of NIC oscillator steering

v7.0.5

• Fix for TimeKeeper segv on startup when initialization fails
• Add option to steer appliance oscillator from non-GPS sources
• Fix for appliances that could show periodic outages without proper DNS setup
• Improvements to oscillator steering on Velasync/TimeKeeper Grandmaster
• Ensure IPMI time is correct on TimeKeeper Grandmaster systems
• Fix for ‘status’ tab that could cause it to be blank occasionally
• Allow IPMI network gateway to be set for TimeKeeper/Velasync appliances
• Fixes to detect and reject malformed PTP data
• Documentation updates
• Avoid sending license alarms until they’re necessary
• Detect and reject invalid satellite details when building signal strength map
• More detailed information when alerting about RAID device failures on TimeKeeper Grandmasters
• Fix PHC steering in the case where the NIC is steered directly to the upstream source and that source is lost
• Fix regression in network timing map where nodes may not be connected accurately
• TimeKeeper Grandmaster allows restoration of original /etc/timekeeper.conf via “timekeeper_cli” tool

v7.0.4

• Fix for TAI timescale PTP client leap second bug
• Handle case where multiple connect/disconnect cycles of antenna can cause unstable GPS frequency
• Add GPS tab to appliance to display signal strength map and location map
• Fix problem with RS232 PPS input on 32-bit systems
• Do not emit traps/alarms when switching sources during startup, only during normal operation
• Always force timezone to UTC on TimeKeeper Grandmasters for logging consistency
• Fix for installer for case where an invalid license file is provided
• Fix web GUI issue when saving recently added options
• Fix issue where very long SNMP traps/emails/syslog messages could be truncated

v7.0.3

• Improve accuracy/tracking of low-quality time sources with adaptive smoothing
• Remove cosmetic problem of message in logs of related to sfc_read_skew
• Fix regression (from 7.0 release) that meant very low quality sources were not handled as well as they could be
• Fix for NTP specification ambiguity so root dispersion/delay are handled properly no matter the NTP client/version
• Accuracy improvements with all source types when system frequency is less stable
• Fix bug introduced in v7.0.0 for Tsync cards that have no GPS module (only PPS)
• Make VERBOSE_NTP configurable via the web interface
• Add ENABLE_SATELLITEDATA option and collect detailed GPS satellite angle/signal data
• Web interface specifies default PTP priority values in PTP server configuration
• TimeKeeper Grandmaster now reports GPS state on status page even when using another source
• TimeKeeper Grandmaster provides a simpler ‘GPS source’ selection
• TimeKeeper Grandmaster also now allows user to configure gateway and reboot appliance from the command line with timekeeper_cli

v7.0.2

• Fix chassis state information on Velasync
• Correction to frequency graph axis label - ticks/second is now properly labeled as PPB change
• Avoid opening any PHC devices related to an interface named in AVOID_IFACES
• Disable per-device gateway settings on TimeKeeper Grandmasters, replaced with advanced routing capabilities
• TimeKeeper Grandmaster supports configuration of policy based routing via timekeeper_cli

v7.0.1

• Update to 10G grandmaster network drivers to support new hardware
• More improvements in NTP accuracy when hardware timestamps are available
• Do not cause unnecessary ioctl messages from Solarflare cards
• Prevent potential web interface restarts under heavy load
• Raise process limits on TimeKeeper Grandmaster
• Control time on Solarflare cards even when Linux API is not available (useful for SolarCapture and PPS output)

v7.0.0

• Grandmaster configuration of IPMI GATEWAY works correctly now
• Expand holdover support for devices that can support it (Spectracom TSync and others)
• “tkstatus” command does not show PHC/NIC time devices (sources 100+)
• Fixes for “service timekeeper status”
• Greatly reduce overhead of PTP/NTP serving which also increases client capacity of grandmasters
• Reduced memory footprint
• Add ability to detect/report asymmetric network links
• TimeKeeper threads now show their function in certain “ps” commands rather than “timekeeperapp”
• Support for Spectracom SecureSync
• TimeKeeper grandmaster bug fix that could interrupt service for a short time when 0 satellites were visible
• Fix issue preventing web client graphing involving clients with fully qualified domain names
• Fixes for non-primary PPS input on some NIC cards
• When tracking and serving a given PTP domain TimeKeeper will not track itself
• TimeKeeper install no longer requires kernel module or kernel development package
• RAID support on TimeKeeper grandmaster
• EMAILNOTIFICATION_THROTTLE allows for the optional throttling and bundling of email message alerts
• INITIAL_SERVE_ACCURACY optionally prevents serving of time before a named accuracy threshold is met
• Support for hybrid mode PTP with Grandmasters from Oscilloquartz
• Ability to save and restore appliance configuration state on TimeKeeper grandmasters
• timekeeper_cli command line tool to configure some TimeKeeper Grandmaster capabilities from the command line
• Basepackage upgrade (version 1.3) for TimeKeeper Grandmasters available to address GHOST glibc vulnerability (CVE-2015-0235)

TimeKeeper Version 6.3.x

v6.3.19

• Fix for TAI timescale PTP client leap second bug

v6.3.18

• Faster leap second correction in some situations

v6.3.17

• Reduce unneeded logging when not in verbose modes
• Handle invalid DNS lookups when reresolving hostnames at runtime
• TimeKeeper init script now checks for both kernel and user components when checking service status

v6.3.16

• clock_gettime(CLOCK_MONOTONIC) no longer pauses briefly when clock is adjusted (CLOCK_MONOTONIC was always monotonic before, however)
• Fix for bug that could allow time on some NICs to oscillate
• Fix issue preventing web client graphing involving clients with fully qualified domain names
• Enable VDSO/faster time reads on more Linux v3.13 kernels

v6.3.15

• Report GPS signal strength in dB Hz rather than percentage
• Improvements to “sourcecheck” algorithm to detect bad sources more quickly
• Implement CLOCK_REALTIME_COARSE on systems that support it
• Prevent incorrect alarms about device state changes with Spectracom Tsync PCIe devices in some configurations
• Update in-sync status on Solarflare hardware to support Onload-translated hardware timestamps in some configurations

v6.3.14

• Changes to handle latest RT kernel scheduler changes from RedHat
• Grandmaster alarms when inlet temperature is out of range (temperature lowered to 95F)
• Improved accuracy and clock modeling
• Changes to support Rubidium unit on TimeKeeper grandmasters
• Changes to assist in factory test/setup of Velasync
• Improved Solarflare card accuracy
• Handle some protocol violations that some buggy PTP implementations on cameras have
• Resolve rare rendering issue with timing graph legend in web GUI
• Support TACACS+ authentication on TimeKeeper Grandmasters (requires basepackage version 1.2)
• Ensure configuration is parsed if possible during service stop, so any options that guide shutdown logic are honored
• Fix for default route detection where needed in environments with tunneling enabled
• Resolve web GUI issue where raw offset data could be displayed when the user had disabled that metric
• On Grandmaster, ensure default gateway can just be set in the general network settings in addition to the per-interface settings
• Basepackage upgrade (version 1.2) for TimeKeeper Grandmasters available to address bash shellshock vulnerabilities (CVE-2014-6271, CVE-2014-7169, CVE-2014-7186, CVE-2014-7187)

v6.3.13

• Fix grandmaster bug that could cause it to not report a source state change
• Grandmaster will consider “holdover” state as a bad state and will fall back to other sources rather than staying in holdover even when TimeKeeper believes holdover is better
• Improved randomization to avoid delay request congestion when many clients are started at the exact same time
• When hardware RX timestamps work but not hardware TX timestamps on Solarflare cards use software for all to get better sync
• Faster sync for major/minor sources
• Raise threshold for reporting GPS signal interference on grandmaster to avoid false alarms
• Fix bug that could cause timezone to not update properly
• Web configuration of IPMI interface added
• Fix for problem introduced in previous version for Spectracom Tsync driver unload
• Remove per-device staggering for NIC oscillators - improves SolarCapture compatibility
• Better support for selecting clients by IP and netmask range in the web GUI
• Web GUI now displays and sorts clients by DNS name, if known
• timekeeper-config RPM spec file now solely provides /etc/timekeeper.conf, instead of managing shared ownership with the timekeeper RPM package
• Updates to resolve /proc filesystem issues with some 3.14-based kernels
• Prevent some configurations from suppressing SNMP alerts about errors in the timing quality of PTP clients
• If the TimeKeeper status information reported on the web interface is stale, note that it’s dated for the user
• print_licinfo now reports detail about beta releases at runtime if applicable
• Timing map in web interface now has controls to handle large maps better
• Added AVOID_IFACES parameter to avoid enabling features on troublesome NICs
• Allow broader set of password character ranges in the TimeKeeper GUI
• Display current network information (such as DHCP address data) for the user in the TimeKeeper GUI

v6.3.12

• Updates for latest Solarflare driver/firmware PPS support
• Improved support for Flareon Solarflare cards
• TimeKeeper can collect accuracy, software version and other information from non-TimeKeeper clients and display them
• Support for Symmetric active/passive mode to better support Windows 2003 clients
• Improvements to graphing tools in web interface - better zoom control with sliders, added option to refresh graph immediately
• Improvements to accuracy/stability of TimeKeeper Grandmaster
• Prevent kernel module from being deleted while trying to rebuild .ko to match host kernel, in case host does not have build tools
• Reduced CPU usage across the TimeKeeper application
• TimeKeeper Grandmaster now uses local system account details for authentication
• Improved graphing when time sources report nonsense values - for easier detection of nonsense
• Enable hardware timestamping on all packet types with Solarflare Flareon cards, even if no PTP sources or servers are configured
• Web client interface improved for faster performance, while allowing more clients to be plotted with more intuitive controls
• Added optional SERVENTP_IFACE parameter, allowing TimeKeeper to only respond to requests seen on the named interface
• Allow TimeKeeper config RPM to be built as a non-root user

v6.3.11

• Improvements in data report by report_problem.sh script
• Fix to unicast PTP implementation that caused clients to not interact with some grandmasters properly
• Increase PTP log interval value when serving time to handle some PTP clients that report missing announce messages too early (older version of Domain Time II)
• Improved management/reporting for legacy NTP clients
• Ability to view logs in web GUI farther in past along with performance improvements
• Enable VDSO/faster time reads on more Linux v3.10 kernels
• Update to allow using /dev/ttyUSB* as RS232 input device
• Grandmaster network card firmware changes (for new hardware)
• Grandmaster GUI support for adding, managing and removing VLAN interfaces

v6.3.10

• The monolithic timekeeper.spec file has been refactored into 3 separate RPM spec files
• Provide prebuilt RPMs for a subset of the supported distributions
• Provide more information in web status page - last update time, warn if there are no recent updates
• Work around Linux clock API issue on SLES 11 SP3 kernels
• During installation, the TimeKeeper service status is no longer disabled, so that during an upgrade any previous configuration is retained

v6.3.9

• Fixes for PTP BMC - in some circumstances UTC offset and other data would not update from PTP announce messages
• Improved tracking in environments where negative one way delay times are possible
• Fixes for some bugs in GCC that can manifest on SLES 11 SP3 kernels as delayed wakeups

v6.3.8

• Improved Spectracom PCIe device tracking/noise rejection in noisy PCIe environments
• report_problem.sh now collects satellite data from a local Spectracom TSync PCIe card as part of the system summary
• Fix memory leak on some new kernels when using PHC devices

v6.3.7

• Add support for optimized timing calls on 3.5.0/3.5.7 kernels
• Automatic PTP source recovery when upstream networking hardware loses multicast group membership state
• Avoid checking for Spectracom TSync driver in configurations that do not require it

v6.3.6

• Log failures when NTP server hostname resolution fails
• When ENABLE_RERESOLVE is set continue to run if initial DNS query fails
• Fix for automatic upgrade version comparisons
• Updates for latest generation grandmaster hardware system chassis status queries
• Support hardware timestamping on VLAN interfaces
• TimeKeeper Grandmaster appliances now support HTTPS

v6.3.5

• Initial support for RHEL 7 beta
• Fix to correctly start up and take over timing calls when some processors are offline

v6.3.4

• Improvements to “Time Map” for NTPd self-referencing sources
• Significant improvement in NTP accuracy with hardware timestampping
• Fix so that kernel module is properly recompiled when Linux kernel changes
• Improvements to web GUI - make better use of screen real estate and usability/clarity changes
• Support for RADIUS authentication on the grandmaster appliance
• Respond to NTP requests on same interface they came in on no matter what routing is - allows multiple interfaces on the same subnet
• Changes for grandmaster to not read time when reading GPS data - avoids occasional bad timestamps

v6.3.3

• Syscall performance improvement for systems with high processor counts and unsynchronized oscillators
• TimeKeeper now provides a walkable SNMP tree and MIB file, along with new separate trap definitions
• Data was added to PTP client quality trap to provide more context

v6.3.2

• Reduced CPU load on grandmaster with many thousands of clients
• Grandmaster watchdog will not trigger at low CPU load any longer
• Faster disciplining of NIC oscillators
• Do not show internal oscillators/time sources in map (PHC devices)
• Fix to prevent server disconnection warnings in web GUI when uploading large base package files over slow links
• PTP Unicast/Telecom profile changes to support some legacy client systems
• Detect and alert when non-grandmaster licenses are placed on TimeKeeper grandmasters
• Users can now enable or disable the SNMP service on TimeKeeper grandmasters from the web GUI

v6.3.1

• Correct rare lost hardware timestamps when changing IP addresses on grandmaster hardware
• Improvements to client and server unicast PTP to better support more hardware
• Handle low-rate PTP sources more accurately
• Improved cable delay configuration/accuracy for TimeKeeper grandmaster
• Improvements for better short-term stability and also holdover performance on grandmaster hardware
• Allow setting syslog/rsyslog destination hosts on grandmasters
• Grandmaster base package update to Linux kernel for newer grandmaster hardware
• Improved NIC oscillator disciplining
• Fix poor performance with very low NTP sync rates regression that worked in previous version
• Add ability to change how long logs are archived on the grandmaster from web GUI
• Fix for rare and incorrect reporting of “No GPS Signal” message on grandmasters
• Report more GPS reception data on grandmasters

v6.3.0

• Significant improvement to web configuration interface
• Improve source and client web graphing interface
• Update time map view to improve performance and make information more clear
• Do not run sourcecheck on sources that are in very tight sync to remove noise
• Detect and when possible recover from GPS jamming on TimeKeeper Grandmaster
• Support for TimeKeeper Pocket Grandmaster hardware
• Add support for GPIO devices for alternate PPS sources
• Improved performance when using Solarflare and other hardware timestamp NICs
• Improved accuracy for PPS output on Solarflare cards

TimeKeeper Version 6.2.x

v6.2.14

• Add ‘loguser’ to Grandmaster to permit accessing logs and monitoring state
• Use UUID filtering on Solarflare cards to reduce card load for better stability
• Performance improvements for Solarflare driver with RHEL 6.4, Centos 6.4 and Linux 3.X kernels
• Fixes to factory reset on grandmaster and improvements in ssh access
• Allow factory reset on grandmaster hardware from console
• Bug fix for possible hang when stopping TimeKeeper with a high-priority RT task running on RHEL 5.x systems
• Web GUI has more clean (human readable) status/state information about Spectracom TSync cards
• Add beta support for Fedora 19
• Updates to hardware and software end user license agreement
• More improvements for faster/more accurate disciplining of all NIC oscillators (more accurate PPS output on Solarflare cards)
• Remove error message for non-errors when reading second port of Solarflare cards on Centos 6.4
• Corrections to documentation

v6.2.13

• Faster/more accurate disciplining of NIC oscillators (more accurate PPS output on Solarflare cards)
• Improve accuracy when using low NTP sync rates (long intervals)
• Fix bug with major/minor time when major time source is very noisy
• More clear (human readable) status/state information on “Status” page
• Add support for Linux 3.9+ kernels
• If TimeKeeper module fails to load still start timekeeper web so appliance configuration works properly
• New user command tkstatus that prints status of TimeKeeper
• Fix bug that could delay unload if user opens /proc/timekeeper_control
• Do not require /etc/issue to be present during installation
• Configuration option for server to enable/disable RFC 868 support added to web management interface

v6.2.12

• If WEB_MANAGEMENT_IP is specified, validate that the named IP is a valid local address. If it is, the web interface will only be accessible via that IP address. If not, TimeKeeper will emit a trap and the web interface will be available on all interfaces so the issue can be resolved.
• Add option to cause occasional re-resolving host names to switch between NTP servers via round-robin DNS
• Grandmaster self-test displayed on status page
• Improved logging behavior on grandmaster appliance - means faster log collection for support requests
• Collect more information when creating problem reports from the web interface
• Fix when attempting to automatically upload problem report and download it locally
• Send alert (SNMP, email, rsyslog) on some startup errors
• Intel 82576 specific fix: permit mixed-use NTP/PTP without disabling hardware timestamps
• Resolve raw and CSV file download issue with some versions of Firefox
• When running the PTP BMC algorithm, prefer sources that specify a lower priority1 and priority2 value in their announce messages

v6.2.11

• Option to allow missing followup messages to handle some network card bugs
• Grandmaster appliance improvements for handling greater load and more PPS inputs
• Fixes for consistent behavior across Linux versions and Linux schedulers resulting in better performance when under heavy load
• Improved self-test of grandmaster systems on startup
• Add support for TIME (RFC 868) protocol and millisecond extension
• Fix for cases where saving and applying network settings on Grandmaster would save settings but not restart networking
• Only warn about license expiration once per day
• Fixes for grandmaster chassis temperature/power supply state check

v6.2.10

• More reliable startup/shutdown when using isolcpus and heavily loaded systems

v6.2.9

• Processor affinity change for kernel threads - do not default to the last CPU on start. Instead, move directly to the configured processor right away.
• /etc/init.d/timekeeper init script locking to prevent concurrent execution.

v6.2.8

• Significantly less memory required for serving NTP now
• Improved beta support for 3.8 kernels
• Now all threads (not just performance critical threads) are bound to the configured CPU
• Improved Grandmaster/GPS/oscillator accuracy and holdover
• Prevent possibility of reporting incomplete chassis status data in Grandmaster web interface

v6.2.7

• Added additional timing call takeover safety checks - to ensure safe TimeKeeper startup and shutdown for systems under extremely high load
• Prevent possibility of CLOCK_MONOTONIC backward movement (by 1-2 microseconds) on newer Linux kernels. Other clocks were not at risk of backward movement
• Documentation updates
• On TimeKeeper Grandmaster appliances, validate that the web management interface remains on when updating the configuration

v6.2.6

• Fix management data collection time window problem introduced in v6.2.5 that can cause excessive memory and CPU consumption as well as network traffic. Upgrading from v6.2.5 is strongly recommended and any use of v6.2.5 is discouraged.
• Detect if a restart of the web tools indicates normal operation or an error, and warn the user if needed
• Fix potential segfault/crash in TimeKeeper management server

v6.2.5

• Workaround for hardware timestamp bugs in kernels used on Centos/RHEL 6.4
• Change packet size for PTP sync and delay request messages to interoperate with Juniper switches better
• Pin kernel threads on the CPU number specified in /etc/timekeeper.conf, or use the last CPU if not specified
• Interoperate with Arista switches better - wait longer (400ms) for followup messages
• Single, clear trap message if license issues are detected at startup regardless of cause - specifics are provided in log file

v6.2.4

• Grandmaster appliance requires the user to agree to the EULA on first login
• Add client-side SNMP clearing traps for when sync error thresholds are restored
• Update Symmetricom BC635/BC637 driver
• Improvement to frequency estimator and predictor for better handling of noisy time sources

v6.2.3

• Beta support for Linux 3.8 kernels, including hardware timestamps
• Solarflare hardware timestamping has been re-enabled by default since latest Solarflare firmware (v3.3.0-6269) fixes PTP stability problems
• Allow processor frequency up to 5.0GHz
• Support for transparent clocks (in partnership with Arista)
• Better sync quality from improved frequency modeling
• Handle cases where remote PPS-based devices are untrustworthy
• Added a read-only user capability so non-administrators can use the web console to view data
• Avoid potential issues with long SNMP trap messages
• PTP sources can be configured to collect management data
• Web interface data collection updates for Fedora 18
• Expose SYNTONIZEONLY option in web interface
• Collect more network device data with ethtool on systems with renamed or virtual network interfaces
• Better drag behavior in “Time Map” when user is zoomed in

v6.2.2

• Clearer error message in cases where management tool is not supported
• Better sync quality due to better noise rejection
• VERBOSE_NTP option for detailed NTP logging information (client and server)
• Documentation updates
• On older hardware and old distributions, accept invalid timestamp data from the network stack until TimeKeeper is active and can offer correct data to callers
• Do not report license type in /proc/timekeeper output, since authoritative information is available elsewhere
• Reduce disk usage of bug/error reporting script on grandmaster configurations

v6.2.1

• Improvements to PTP BMC when using a grandmaster that has multiple servers
• Performance improvements for PTP management message handling under heavy load
• Error message added when service is started/stopped as non-root user
• Performance improvement for clock_gettime(CLOCK_MONOTONIC,…)
• Fix length field in management GET requests
• Less overhead in management query/response handling
• Improved performance in socket handling
• Per-source CABLEDELAY configuration option available
• Reduce memory load in client browsers when viewing timing network map

v6.2.0

• Visual representation of timing network in “Time Map”
• Improved scaling of time network management and monitoring tools
• Improved security features and detection of bad/false sources
• Reduced memory footprint
• Improved efficiency - able to handle more clients/servers with lower CPU overhead while running
• NTP queries now originate from port 123 to interact better with some firewalls
• Increased maximum PTP sync rate
• Respect rate change requests from NTP servers - slow down query rate when requested
• Add system (linux) log message tab to web interface for grandmaster
• Support for Redhat 6.4 beta release
• Bug fix to implementation of PTP best-master-clock algorithm
• Add support for Solarflare PPS input
• Disable HW timestamp on Solarflare cards until updated firmware is available (this works-around firmware bug)

TimeKeeper Version 6.1.x

v6.1.13

• Performance improvement for clock_gettime(CLOCK_MONOTONIC,…)

v6.1.12

• When displaying grandmaster network interface information, provide the MAC address of each interface if known
• Prevent case where web client can be provided stale configuration data
• Avoid locking some web UI elements on Firefox

v6.1.11

• Workaround hardware bug with UTC update on some GPS PCIe cards
• Make rate of alerts from sync error threshold errors configurable

v6.1.10

• Allow hardware timestamp disabling to be controlled just by the configuration file and not dependent on card type

v6.1.9

• Fix memory leak
• Fix for disabling hardware timestamps on Solarflare and Broadcom cards

v6.1.8

• Enable VDSO/faster time reads on Linux v3.2 kernels (Ubuntu 12 for example)
• Disable VDSO properly on Linux v3.x kernels where appropriate - prevents incorrect timestamps when VDSO is not supported on those kernels

v6.1.7

• Track Spectratime unit more aggressively during frequency changes

v6.1.6

• Re-order /proc/timekeeper information so primary source number is always shown
• Option to upload new licenses and TimeKeeper release via web tool in Grandmaster configuration
• Always run web tools even if license is expired
• Fix for selecting a CPU for TimeKeeper to run on that was introduced in 6.1.5
• Fix for possible loss of management data from clients
• Fix PTP best-master-clock algorithm implementation in cases where two PTP boundary clocks used the same grandmaster. Previously this caused rapid switching of the client between the two boundary clocks
• Reduce bandwidth needs when using web management tools, particularly to assist users on slower and remote links
• Document SYNCERRORTHRESHOLD as it applies to PTP servers in the timekeeper.conf example file

v6.1.5

• Reduced network I/O when using web management tools, for better performance over slow connections
• Selectively enable management interface on a specific network address for access control
• Client monitoring offset range graph on web interface is now auto-updating over the last 4 hours of data
• Add LOWQUALITY flag to improve tracking of low quality sources such as NTPd
• Fix when NTP server response with KISS field that is unprintable/garbage - safe reporting
• Unicast delay responses from Grandmaster configuration were not unicast in some cases - fixed
• Fix bug in Linux kernel for high CPU load that can be caused by hrtimer/futex calls
• Management improvements for Grandmaster configuration
• Improvements in security check for bad time, bad frequency, GPS spoof attacks
• Grandmaster web monitoring/control improvements
• Windows 7 compatibility improvements
• Web interface does not even provide high level status information until login succeeds
• Warn when no time sources are declared
• Web console breaks configuration options down into sections - sources, servers, and options
• Provide support for web management tools on more distributions

v6.1.4

• Prevent potentially doubled text when viewing client data on web management console
• Force new process session when performing a restart
• Update web status page more consistently

v6.1.3

• Resolve transient web management page load problems, also speed up page load
• Support for hardware timestamps on Broadcom 1G and 10G cards
• Better performance over noisy WAN links
• Improved performance/stability of web console
• Web console client information is updated more frequently (all data from clients displayed), more useful initial page for system status
• Improved holdover accuracy when no quality sources are available
• Improved bad/malicious source detection
• Interoperability problems between PTPv1 and PTPv2 fixed
• Support for Ubuntu 12.04 and SuSE 12.1

v6.1.2

• More data for smoother client sync quality graphs in the management console
• Allow web management console to store user preferences regarding plotting
• Prevent a case where PTP followup messages might be seen but discarded
• Better time series labelling on source and client graphs
• Users can now set (and retain) preferred graph scalings to better compare data
• Installer update - when a license is already present and installed, retain/reuse the license correctly even across partitions

v6.1.1

• Improved performance of web GUI
• Improved accuracy for NTP
• Improved accuracy for pulse-per-second (PPS) sources (including RS232/serial sources)
• Autodetection of serial port I/O locations
• Detection of web browsers with incomplete websocket implementations, link to plugin to assist
• Version number change - do not pad version number with leading 0’s to avoid confusion
• Trimble GPS source support
• Improved PTP Telecom Profile unicast client and server robustness
• Management GUI now provides a log tab with recent timekeeper log data
• VDSO supported on Fedora 14
• Support for emitting syslog events
• Improved hardware timestamp cross checking
• More consistent logging format across source and servers
• “No logging” option that stops logging timestamps

v6.1.0

• Faster time reads on RedHat Enterprise 6.x series MRG kernels (3.0.x kernels)
• Unconditionally create /var/log/timekeeperclients to avoid situations where logrotate did not work properly
• Added holdover mode that allows TimeKeeper clients to maintain low-drift levels when primary sources are lost that are normally only available to atomic clocks
• Option to disable/enable hardware timestamps
• PTP client configuration can auto-configure TTL in some cases if the user forgets to configure it properly
• TimeKeeper RPM .spec file would create automatic dependencies that were incorrect - fixed now
• Allow users to specify SNMP OID with SNMPTRAPOID
• Handle occasional errors on hardware timestamp NICs to continue operation
• On install, if /etc/timekeeper.conf exists, it is left in place, and a reference /etc/timekeeper.conf.stock is installed
• PTP boundary clocks can now forward on client sync quality information to any upstream TimeKeeper servers
• Feature additions to management GUI - break client sync summaries down by IP/mask groups, provide static graphs of offsets, display live offset graphs by IP/mask group, add live netdelay graphs, improvements to the other accuracy graphs
• Do not send SNMP/email sync quality traps on startup - only do so after the sync has crossed into the specified sync error threshold range, to prevent large numbers of traps on startup as the clock slews in
• Do not send SNMP/email sync quality traps at a rate of more than once every 5 seconds, to avoid trap floods
• Reduction of overhead when reading the time - time reads are faster now
• Further protection against applications trying to drive Linux clocks
• RPM spec file leaves config files in place if they’re already installed and modified

TimeKeeper Version 6.0.x

v6.0.3

• Workaround for occasional lost PTP followup packets on Intel 82576 hardware
• Reference license/configuration files on Arista switches in persistent storage rather than in /etc/ and /opt/timekeeper
• More timestamp-related messages now fall under the VERBOSE_TIMESTAMPS config option
• Detect common failures on some grandmaster appliances and switch to other sources more quickly
• Faster detection/failover when sourcecheck detects a faulty time source
• report_problem.sh script now collects timekeeper_management log
• Check and warn about bad license states once every 2 hours instead of once every 24 to avoid license check issues when bad clocks confuse license state information on short term license files
• Ability to read hardware timestamps from Solarflare cards when Linux itself does not support them (older Linux kernels)
• Improvements for NTP when used on WAN with slow/erratic network links

v6.0.2

• Fixes for some Linux distributions in cases where no PTP interface is specified - always select default route now
• Fixes for rare startup condition while serving that could cause segv
• Add new configuration option VERBOSE_TIMESTAMPS for explicit timestamp logging activity
• Make SET_TIME_ON_STARTUP visible to the web management GUI
• Add new configuration option VERBOSE_TCPDUMP for easy logging of network activity

v6.0.1

• Fix for updated UTC offset for PTP clients - previously did not properly recognize leap seconds from some PTP grandmasters
• Support for configuring multiple PTP sources of the same grandmaster and domain
• Make management query rate configurable - new configuration variable MANAGEMENT_QUERY_INTERVAL
• Display ideal and current tickrate graphs of sources in the security tab of the management console
• Additional quality/health/security checks of time sources when sourcecheck is enabled
• PTP servers can trigger alerts if any of the clients report a sync quality that exceeds SYNCERRORTHRESHOLD
• When restarting, remove old TimeKeeper PTP client files after they have been logrotated

v6.0.0

• Problem/bug reporting tool can optionally upload data automatically
• Web based GUI for management/monitoring of clients and server
• Improved holdover stability when no time source is available
• Ability to reset some GPS cards that do not lock a signal reliably on startup
• TimeKeeper option to set the time immediately (unconditionally) on startup
• Enable VDSO/vsyscalls on more CentOS releases
• PTP management support - PTP server collects/displays performance and statistics of clients
• Full PTP unicast support (useful for multihop network connections)
• Logs are rotated more frequently by default to reduce disk footprint
• Correction of PTP UUID put on wire
• Internal changes to allow operation on networking hardware (switches and routers)
• Send traps if a specific source’s sync is over a configurable threshold
• Improved accuracy and clock model for PCI bus cards
• TimeKeeper requires less overhead while running

TimeKeeper Version 5.1.x

v5.1.04

• Collect uptime/load average with report_problem.sh
• Updates for PTPv1 serving on alternate domains
• report_problem.sh uses a more specific filename based on time
• Suppress unneeded messages during install

v5.1.03

• Avoid possible but rare time takeover conflict at service start
• Support for email notification of TimeKeeper events
• Workaround for problems when other packages consume/delay PTP packets
• More verbose reporting when necessary tools are not available for install
• report_problem.sh adds /sbin to the path for data collection
• Install saves currently installed /etc/timekeeper.conf as /etc/timekeeper.conf.backup

v5.1.02

• Support for bc7xPCIe PTP card
• Disallow negative round-trip times to reject timestamps that are erroneous because of other applications consuming PTP packets (caused by openonload)

v5.1.01

• Customer specific features
• Watchdog TimeKeeper task in-kernel in case user-mode component crashes
• Allow setting PTP server TTL of multicast packets
• When starting up with no valid source TimeKeeper watchdog failover thread exited - now it will continue trying
• Documentation updates

v5.1.00

• Detection of clock-rate ramping to detect thermal events and correct them
• “Sourcecheck” feature will cross-check multiple sources and allow detection of bad, invalid or malicious time sources
• Fixes for installation with sudo (uid, euid updates)
• New license system - options, features and allowed runtime controlled by a license file rather than timekeeper binary
• Support for RedHat 6.2
• Clock will be set (or “stepped”) if time is more than 5 seconds off. Previous threshold was 30 seconds.
• Greatly improved accuracy/stability. Especially with noisy links (WAN and wireless links)
• TimeKeeper CPU processing overhead reduced
• PTP delay request messages are sent for every sync received (additional accuracy improvement)
• NTP client allows sync rate adjustment
• Install provides a generated RPM spec file to ease deployments

TimeKeeper Version 5.0.x

v5.0.08

• Correct port number in PTP announce messages
• Only step (or explicitly set) the clock on startup to overcome erratic output from some clock sources when they are reset
• Enable VDSO/vsyscalls on Fedora Core 15
• Faster execution/lower overhead for clock_gettime on some platforms

v5.0.07

• Faster clock_gettime() on some distributions/kernels (RedHat 5.5 for example)
• Improved consistency in timetests measurements
• Enable VDSO/vsyscalls on Ubuntu 10.04
• IEEE 1588 protocol implementation fixes - response with TAI timestamp to TAI grandmaster, control field properly set, port enumeration begins at 1

v5.0.06

• Improved accuracy and precision of timetests program to test time read overhead
• Fix for occasional lost PTP delay request messages

v5.0.05

• Enable VDSO/vsyscalls on CentOS 5.6
• Enable VDSO/vsyscalls on SLES 10

v5.0.04

• Enable VDSO/vsyscalls on Fedora 13

v5.0.03

• No longer requires a static route for PTP multicast group
• Fix for multicast PTP grandmaster mode (introduced v5.0.02)

v5.0.02

• Allow setting unicast/multicast for PTP grandmaster (ptp delay response) and client (ptp delay request) messages
• Allow setting a CPU mask of CPUs to run TimeKeeper on
• Allow a larger difference between hardware and software timestamps before discarding hardware timestamps. Necessary for some cards that are slow to transmit.

v5.0.01

• Fix for logrotate putting empty data at the beginning of log files after rotating them

v5.0.00

• Configuration file format change
• Ability to track multiple time sources (up to 50) at a time
• PTP support for boundary clock mode and best master clock selection
• PTP Followup messages are sent much sooner (10’s of microseconds) after sync messages now
• PTP boundary clock functionality added
• Reduced overhead of timekeeper use processes and kernel processes
• Better discarding of invalid and stray PTP packets when used in multi-domain PTP networks

TimeKeeper Version 4.19.x

v4.19.03

• Improve sync quality with rate change estimation algorithms
• Fix for vDSO gettimeofday() call. Previously it could report 1000000 uSec in the tv_usec field which was incorrect. This was due to an error in the normalization function used to correct the tv_sec and tv_usec fields. Only gettimeofday() and only when used with vDSO did this behavior show up.
• Cosmetic fix for startup values in logs for offset. Initial values could be incorrect in first timestamp as reported in log. They were not used for time correction, though.

v4.19.02

• Fixes for merging major NTP time with a minor source like a PPS, particularly when there are large offsets

v4.19.01

• Fixes for more than 16 CPUs
• Correct PTP grandmaster mode 48-bit to 64-bit OUI mapping
• Fixes for RedHat MRG install

v4.19.00

• Bug fix for some versions of RedHat Enterprise 5 that caused interval timers - sleep(1), futex() and similar, to pause for too long
• No longer move IRQs off the last CPU on the system but TimeKeeper does still move itself to the last CPU
• Fix for utility and test program ‘baddate’ so that it now works for both positive and negative offsets
• Allow PTP sync rate between 64/packets per second and 0.5/packets per second on client and server side. Fixes client behavior with higher sync rates and adds ability to configure rate to server.
• Improvements to the logic used to discard time updates (NTP, PTP or local source) that are believed to be too noisy.
• TimeKeeper data files will be rotated via logrotate. A default logrotate recipe is installed with the product.
• plots/plot.sh is provided for easy generation of timing information.
• Allow PTP domain to be specified on the server side via the PTPDOMAIN configuration option.
• PPS generation utility provided (ppsgen/ directory) to compare TimeKeeper-managed systems against a reference PPS.
• Screensaver no longer activates at TimeKeeper service start and stop.

TimeKeeper Version 4.18.x

v4.18.06

• Fix for install problems on some non-bus card hosts

v4.18.05

• Fixes for TSync bus card. Can now use preloaded/configured driver or internal driver.