In this section
This section describes the typical mode of operation for PPS time synchronization. This mode is used throughout the chapter.
Mode of operation
In this mode of operation the SmartNIC driver monitors simultaneously sampled clock values from an NT SmartNIC and a 3rd-party time device, compares the skew, and adjusts the NT SmartNIC clock to follow the 3rd-party reference clock (UTC time). The NT SmartNIC transfers frames with UTC time stamps to the host buffer.
The pps_endrun, pps_oregano and pps_symmetricom tools (see DN-0449) execute SmartNIC time stamp clock synchronization for three different types of time devices, the EndRun Præcis Cf CDMA receiver, the EndRun Præcis II CDMA receiver, the Oregano SYN1588 PCIe NIC (IEEE 1588 / PTP) and the Microsemi SyncServer®, respectively. The tools can be used as references for customized synchronization to other time devices. They can be extended to support failover to alternative time references if the primary time reference fails.
Illustration
This figure illustrates the setup for one of the Napatech time synchronization tools.