Release Notes

The following changes are in the version 3.5 distribution relative to the previous 3.4y version.

  1. Please note the scripts for configuring radio clock drivers do not work. See the building and installing documentation for specific information.

  2. The documentation has been completely reworked in HTML format suitable for web browsing.

  3. The automatic build procedure has been improved to

  4. support the line disciplines, streams modules and precision time kernel modifications. These are controlled by the presence of certain system-dependent header files in the /usr/include/sys directory.

  5. include by default all reference clock drivers known to work with each combination of hardware and operating system. (The particular defaults are specified in the ../machines files for each machine.)

  6. activate precision time kernel modifications by default if detected by the build procedure. (Previous versions required an undocumented addition to the ntp.drift file in order to activate these modifications.)

  7. Three TrueTime reference clock drivers, which did slightly different things with each model, have been replaced with one driver (type 5) that works with all models. Two new reference clock drivers have been added, one for the Bancomm IRIG interface, the other for the TrueTime GPS-VME interface. Both of these work only with the HP architecture.

  8. There is a new pps option to the xntpdc program and configuration file enable/disable command, which enables or disables the PPS precision time control signal for both the PPS clock driver and kernel PPS interface, where available. This is primarily intended for situations where external equipment has malfunctioned or the signal has become excessively noisy.

  9. The precision configuration file command and xntpdc command have been removed; the precision variable quantity is now determined automatically and cannot be changed.

  10. The authenticate and monitor commands in xntpdc have been removed; the functions formerly provided by these commands are now provided by the enable and disable commands.

  11. Fixed minor problems peculiar to different machines and system environments. Fixed minor problem in the PPS interfaces and mitigation rules. See the ./patches directory for details.

Version 3.5 has been compiled and run on at least the following machines, operating systems and compilers. In all known cases, if the gcc compiler eats it with some success, the cc compiler also enjoys the meal; the converse is not always true. Note that, while all clock drivers have been compiled, only certain ones have been tested with each machine and operating system. 

Machine   OS             Comp Notes
------------------------------------------------------------
Alpha     OSF/1 3.2      gcc  all clock drivers (dm 96/02/07)
PC        BSDI 2.0.1     gcc  (pb 96/02/18)
HP7xx     HPUX 9.0.4     gcc  all clock drivers (uw 96/02/21)
MIPS      Ultrix 4.4     gcc  all clock drivers (dm 96/02/07)
PC        Linux 1.3.59   gcc  (bb1 96/02/10)
PC        WindowsNT 3.5  ?    (pg 96/03/18)
SGI       IRIX 5.3       cc   all clock drivers (dm 96/02/20)
Sun4      SunOS 4.1.1    gcc  all clock drivers (dm 96/02/07)
Sun4      SunOS 4.1.3    gcc  all clock drivers (dm 96/02/07)
Sun4      SunOS 5.3      gcc  all clock drivers (dm 96/02/07)
Sun4      SunOS 5.4      gcc  all clock drivers (dm 96/02/07)
Sun4      SunOS 5.5      ?    all clock drivers (ao 96/02/16)
VAX-11    4.3 Tahoe      cc   all clock drivers (dm 96/02/20)

Previous versions have been compiled and run on at least the following machines, operating systems and compilers. 

Machine   OS             Comp Notes
------------------------------------------------------------
VAX-11/785 4.3 tahoe     cc   none
Sun3      SunOS 4.1.1    gcc  no REFCLOCK (pb 93/10/25)
Sun4      SunOS 4.1.1    gcc  all REFCLOCK drivers (dm 93/10/25)
Sun4      SunOS 4.1.3    gcc  all REFLCOCK drivers
Sun4      SunOS 5.1      gcc  no REFCLOCK (pb 93/10/25)
Sun4      SunOS 5.2      gcc  no REFCLOCK (dm 93/11/20)
Sun4      SunOS 5.2      gcc  PARSE REFCLOCK (kd 93/11/10)
Sun4      SunOS 5.3      gcc  all REFCLOCK drivers (dm 95/07/15)
HP700     HPUX 9.0       cc   no REFCLOCK
hp7xx     HPUX 9.01      cc   local + PARSE (kd 93/10/26)
hp7xx     HPUX 9.03      cc   all REFCLOCK drivers (dm 95/07/15)
HP3xx     HPUX 9.01      cc   no REFCLOCK (pb 93/10/25)
HP3xx     HPUX 8.0       cc   no REFCLOCK (pb 93/10/25)
MIPS      Ultrix 4.3a    gcc  all REFCLOCK drivers (dm 93/11/20)
MIPS      Ultrix 3a      gcc  green               (pb 93/10/26)
Alpha     OSF/1 1.2a     gcc  no REFCLOCK         (dm 93/11/20)
Alpha     OSF/1 1.3      gcc  no REFCLOCK         (pb 93/10/25)
Alpha     OSF/1 1.3      gcc  green               (pb 93/10/26)
Alpha     OSF/1 2.0      gcc  no REFCLOCK         (dm 94/10/10)
Alpha     OSF/1 3.0      gcc  no REFCLOCK         (dm 95/07/15)
Convex    Convex OS 10.1 ?    ?
SGI       IRIX 4.0.5F    gcc  no REFCLOCK         (pb 93/11/10)
AIX       3.2            ?    ?
A/UX      2.0.1, 3.x.x   gcc  LOCAL_CLOCK    (jmj (94/01/26 see hints)
RS6000    AIX 3.2        gcc  no REFCLOCK
MX500     Sinix-m V5.40  cc   PARSE REFCLOCK
S2000     Sequent PTX 1.4 cc  LOCAL_CLOCK         (kd 93/11/10)
S2000     Sequent PTX 1.4 gcc LOCAL_CLOCK         (kd 93/11/10)
PC        FreeBSD        gcc  LOCAL_CLOCK         see "build problems"
PC        NetBSD?        gcc  possibly see "build problems"
PC        BSD/386 1.0    gcc  possibly see "build problems"
PC        Linux (pl14)   gcc  LOCAL_CLOCK         (dw 93/10/30)
PC        Dell SVR4 v2.2 gcc  ?                   (tl 93/12/30)
PC        Unixware1/SVR4 cc   no tickadj, ?       (ras 93/04/11)
NCR3445   NCR SVR4       cc   LOCAL_CLOCK         (tm 93/11/29)
PC        WindowsNT 3.5  VisualC++2.0 no REFCLOCK (vb 95/04/11)

vb: Viraj Bais 
pb1: Paolo Bevilacqua 
pb: Piete Brooks
dw: Torsten Duwe 
bf: Bill Foster 
jmj: Jim Jagielski 
kd: Frank Kardel
tl: Tony Lill 
dm: David Mills 
pg: Philip Gladstone 
tm: Tom Moore 
ao: Alexandre Oliva 
ras: Ray Schnitzler 
uw: Ulrich Windl
David L. Mills (mills@udel.edu)