ntpq(8) User Commands ntpq(8)NAMEntpq - standard NTP query program
SYNOPSISntpq [-flags] [-flag [value]] [--option-name[[=| ]value]] [ host ...]
DESCRIPTION
The ntpq utility program is used to query NTP servers which implement
the standard NTP mode 6 control message formats defined in Appendix B
of the NTPv3 specification RFC1305, requesting information about cur‐
rent state and/or changes in that state. The same formats are used in
NTPv4, although some of the variables have changed and new ones added.
The description on this page is for the NTPv4 variables. The program
may be run either in interactive mode or controlled using command line
arguments. Requests to read and write arbitrary variables can be
assembled, with raw and pretty-printed output options being available.
The ntpq utility can also obtain and print a list of peers in a common
format by sending multiple queries to the server. If one or more
request options is included on the command line when ntpq is executed,
each of the requests will be sent to the NTP servers running on each of
the hosts given as command line arguments, or on localhost by default.
If no request options are given, ntpq will attempt to read commands
from the standard input and execute these on the NTP server running on
the first host given on the command line, again defaulting to localhost
when no other host is specified. The ntpq utility will prompt for com‐
mands if the standard input is a terminal device. ntpq uses NTP mode 6
packets to communicate with the NTP server, and hence can be used to
query any compatible server on the network which permits it. Note that
since NTP is a UDP protocol this communication will be somewhat unreli‐
able, especially over large distances in terms of network topology.
The ntpq utility makes one attempt to retransmit requests, and will
time requests out if the remote host is not heard from within a suit‐
able timeout time. Specifying a command line option other than -i or
-n will cause the specified query (queries) to be sent to the indicated
host(s) immediately. Otherwise, ntpq will attempt to read interactive
format commands from the standard input.
Internal Commands
Interactive format commands consist of a keyword followed by zero to
four arguments. Only enough characters of the full keyword to uniquely
identify the command need be typed. A number of interactive format
commands are executed entirely within the ntpq utility itself and do
not result in NTP mode 6 requests being sent to a server. These are
described following.
? [command_keyword]
help [command_keyword]
A ‘?’ by itself will print a list of all the com‐
mand keywords known to this incarnation of ntpq. A
‘?’ followed by a command keyword will print func‐
tion and usage information about the command. This
command is probably a better source of information
about ntpq than this manual page.
addvars variable_name [=value] ...
rmvars variable_name ...
clearvars The data carried by NTP mode 6 messages consists of
a list of items of the form ‘variable_name=value’,
where the ‘=value’ is ignored, and can be omitted,
in requests to the server to read variables. The
ntpq utility maintains an internal list in which
data to be included in control messages can be
assembled, and sent using the readlist and
writelist commands described below. The addvars
command allows variables and their optional values
to be added to the list. If more than one variable
is to be added, the list should be comma-separated
and not contain white space. The rmvars command
can be used to remove individual variables from the
list, while the clearlist command removes all vari‐
ables from the list.
authenticate [yes | no]
Normally ntpq does not authenticate requests unless
they are write requests. The command ‘authenticate
yes’ causes ntpq to send authentication with all
requests it makes. Authenticated requests causes
some servers to handle requests slightly differ‐
ently, and can occasionally melt the CPU in
fuzzballs if you turn authentication on before
doing a peer display. The command ‘authenticate’
causes ntpq to display whether or not ntpq is cur‐
rently autheinticating requests.
cooked Causes output from query commands to be "cooked",
so that variables which are recognized by ntpq will
have their values reformatted for human consump‐
tion. Variables which ntpq thinks should have a
decodable value but didn't are marked with a trail‐
ing ‘?’.
debug [more | less | off]
With no argument, displays the current debug level.
Otherwise, the debug level is changed to the indi‐
cated level.
delay milliseconds Specify a time interval to be added to timestamps
included in requests which require authentication.
This is used to enable (unreliable) server recon‐
figuration over long delay network paths or between
machines whose clocks are unsynchronized. Actually
the server does not now require timestamps in
authenticated requests, so this command may be
obsolete.
host hostname Set the host to which future queries will be sent.
hostname may be either a host name or a numeric
address.
hostnames [yes | no]
If yes is specified, host names are printed in
information displays. If no is specified, numeric
addresses are printed instead. The default is yes,
unless modified using the command line -n switch.
keyid keyid This command allows the specification of a key num‐
ber to be used to authenticate configuration
requests. This must correspond to a key number the
server has been configured to use for this purpose.
ntpversion [1 | 2 | 3 | 4]
Sets the NTP version number which ntpq claims in
packets. Defaults to 3, and note that mode 6 con‐
trol messages (and modes, for that matter) didn't
exist in NTP version 1. There appear to be no
servers left which demand version 1. With no argu‐
ment, displays the current NTP version that will be
used when communicating with servers.
quit Exit ntpq
passwd This command prompts you to type in a password
(which will not be echoed) which will be used to
authenticate configuration requests. The password
must correspond to the key configured for use by
the NTP server for this purpose if such requests
are to be successful.
raw Causes all output from query commands is printed as
received from the remote server. The only format‐
ing/interpretation done on the data is to transform
nonascii data into a printable (but barely under‐
standable) form.
timeout milliseconds
Specify a timeout period for responses to server
queries. The default is about 5000 milliseconds.
Note that since ntpq retries each query once after
a timeout, the total waiting time for a timeout
will be twice the timeout value set.
OPTIONS-4, --ipv4
Force IPv4 DNS name resolution. This option must not appear in
combination with any of the following options: ipv6.
Force DNS resolution of following host names on the command line
to the IPv4 namespace.
-6, --ipv6
Force IPv6 DNS name resolution. This option must not appear in
combination with any of the following options: ipv4.
Force DNS resolution of following host names on the command line
to the IPv6 namespace.
-c cmd, --command=cmd
run a command and exit. This option may appear an unlimited
number of times.
The following argument is interpreted as an interactive format
command and is added to the list of commands to be executed on
the specified host(s).
-d, --debug-level
Increase debug verbosity level. This option may appear an
unlimited number of times.
-D number, --set-debug-level=number
Set the debug verbosity level. This option may appear an unlim‐
ited number of times. This option takes an integer number as
its argument.
-p, --peers
Print a list of the peers. This option must not appear in com‐
bination with any of the following options: interactive.
Print a list of the peers known to the server as well as a sum‐
mary of their state. This is equivalent to the 'peers' interac‐
tive command.
-i, --interactive
Force ntpq to operate in interactive mode. This option must not
appear in combination with any of the following options: com‐
mand, peers.
Force ntpq to operate in interactive mode. Prompts will be
written to the standard output and commands read from the stan‐
dard input.
-n, --numeric
numeric host addresses.
Output all host addresses in dotted-quad numeric format rather
than converting to the canonical host names.
--old-rv
Always output status line with readvar.
By default, ntpq now suppresses the associd=... line that pre‐
cedes the output of readvar (alias rv) when a single variable is
requested, such as ntpq-c "rv 0 offset". This option causes
ntpq to include both lines of output for a single-variable read‐
var. Using an environment variable to preset this option in a
script will enable both older and newer ntpq to behave identi‐
cally in this regard.
-?, --help
Display usage information and exit.
-!, --more-help
Pass the extended usage information through a pager.
-> [cfgfile], --save-opts [=cfgfile]
Save the option state to cfgfile. The default is the last con‐
figuration file listed in the OPTION PRESETS section, below.
The command will exit after updating the config file.
-< cfgfile, --load-opts=cfgfile, --no-load-opts
Load options from cfgfile. The no-load-opts form will disable
the loading of earlier config/rc/ini files. --no-load-opts is
handled early, out of order.
--version [{v|c|n}]
Output version of program and exit. The default mode is `v', a
simple version. The `c' mode will print copyright information
and `n' will print the full copyright notice.
OPTION PRESETS
Any option that is not marked as not presettable may be preset by load‐
ing values from configuration ("RC" or ".INI") file(s) and values from
environment variables named:
NTPQ_<option-name> or NTPQ
The environmental presets take precedence (are processed later than)
the configuration files. The homerc files are "$HOME", and ".". If
any of these are directories, then the file .ntprc is searched for
within those directories.
ntpq(8) User Commands ntpq(8)NAMEntpq ntpq - standard NTP query program
cvt_prog='/usr/local/gnu/share/autogen/texi2man' cvt_prog=`cd `dirname
"$cvt_prog"` >/dev/null && pwd
`/`basename "$cvt_prog"` cd $tmp_dir test -x "$cvt_prog" ||
die "'$cvt_prog' is not executable" {
list='synopsis description options option-presets'
for f in $list ; do cat $f ; echo ; done
rm -f $list name
list='implementation-notes environment files examples exit-status
errors
compatibility see-also conforming-to history authors copyright
bugs
notes'
for f in $list ; do cat $f ; echo ; done > .end-doc
rm -f $list
list=`ls -1 *`' .end-doc'
for f in $list ; do cat $f ; echo ; done
rm -f $list } 1>.doc 2>/dev/null sed -f .cmds .doc |
/opt/csw/bin/ggrep -E -v '^[ ]*$' | $cvt_prog
ENVIRONMENT
See OPTION PRESETS for configuration environment variables.
FILES
See OPTION PRESETS for configuration files.
EXIT STATUS
One of the following exit values will be returned:
0 (EXIT_SUCCESS)
Successful program execution.
1 (EXIT_FAILURE)
The operation failed or the command syntax was not valid.
66 (EX_NOINPUT)
A specified configuration file could not be loaded.
70 (EX_SOFTWARE)
libopts had an internal operational error. Please report it to
autogen-users@lists.sourceforge.net. Thank you.
AUTHORS
The University of Delaware
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1970-2013 The University of Delaware all rights reserved.
This program is released under the terms of the NTP license,
<http://ntp.org/license>.
BUGS
Please send bug reports to: http://bugs.ntp.org, bugs@ntp.org
NOTES
This manual page was AutoGen-erated from the ntpq option definitions.
4.2.7p410 08 Jan 2014 ntpq(8)