Additional NTP Time Reference Options for Peplink|Pepwave devices

Product Discussion Feature Requests
1

Hello @sitloongs,
The integration of NTP into the Peplink|Pepwave solutions is evolving nicely such as seen here Having unit be an NTP time server would be helpful - #79 by sitloongs

Here are some additional things we are seeking in the System Time menus.

  • We need to have multiple reference Time Servers.
    Example: Client has a Peplink Balance 580 router and they have on one of the WANs a Pepwave MAX BR1 ENT with GPS and for cellular failover. The client wants the Balance 580 to get its time reference from the MAX BR1 ENT (referenced to GPS), though if the MAX BR1 ENT goes offline (say it gets unplugged or cable cut as it is in a different part of the building/site from the Balance 580), then it will be necessary to have a secondary or tertiary server option to reference.

  • The ability to modify/set the period/frequency of the NTP requests from the firmware default period.

Happy to Help,
Marcus :slight_smile:

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2

@mldowling

Do you have more info the the requirements ?

Supposedly the B580 will send NTP request to the active WAN and this will make NTP server always reachable via the active WANs. If the device is manage by IC2, the time also will be sync via IC2 as well. B580 also having RTC chip , this will help to keep the times as well.

For the frequency, any reason why you need to overwrite the default time ? We also have build in intelligent when WAN is changing status, may i know this is sufficient to give the reliable time to the LAN devices ?

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3

We have also had some feedback from partners and end users. Two features have been requested;

  1. The ability to have two timezones e.g. one on UTC for all equipment so all equipment is on UTC regardless of location and a second manually set time zone for enduser equipment which would be the local time zone
  2. The ability to change a time zone at a set time. On ships, they will set a time when they change time zone e.g. at 9pm tonight we will put the clocks back an hour as the vessel has moved further west.
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4

Hello @sitloongs,
The Australian Government offers Australian’s access to its Stratum 1 servers for timing. To use these servers you need to comply with not just the NTP standards, though also the number of requests allowed per hour from an approved IP address ( https://www.industry.gov.au/client-services/physical-measurement-services/time-and-frequency-services ). You can find the reasons for this in a letter sent out on the 25 March 2003 at ftp://time.nmi.gov.au/pub/timedata/NTP_update_25_March.txt

We also in some M2M/IIot (Machine to Machine / Industrial Internet of Things) environments need to limit the amount of WAN traffic, outbound NTP request are part of the traffic to limit. Limiting to once or twice per day is enough for some of our client’s projects.
Happy to Help,
Marcus :slight_smile:

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