cRIO as SNTP server

[Aws_Khudhair]

Hi all,

I am trying to evaluate a couple of options to setup the cRIO as a time server for a number of computers (running windows). My main option for doing this is using the IEEE1588 and adding a specialized synchronization PCI card (http://www.meinbergglobal.com/english/products/pci-express-ieee-1588-ptp-slave.htm#Description) on each computer to synch to the cRIO. However these cards are approx. $1600 each and its an added hardware that if I can do without then life would be beautiful :)... There is also a software option but the accuracy on it is not that great.

I am wondering if anyone knows if the cRIO can act as an SNTP server, I do not need submilisecond synchronization on the computers, to be within 10ms of the cRIO time isnt a big issue for me. I know the crio can easily be configured to accept time from an SNTP server, but can it act as the server on the network? this is specially helpful since I have a GPS module on the cRIO and the time on it will be very precise.

Any ideas would be greatly appriciated.

Thank you,

Aws

[Alex-D]

There are no built in vi's to use the cRIO as an SNTP server. There is NI-TimeSync but that is essentially an SNTP Client. There are a few options that you could investigate.

It may be possible to use the gps information relayed to one of the desktop computer which you set up as an NTP server which uses that data to sync its system time. That approach could be slow and inaccurate but might be worth investigating. That computer can then serve as the time server for the rest of the network.

You could look at getting a low cost gps card for the Desktop and then use TimeSync to sync the cRIO and then the normal SNTP methods to sync the rest of the desktops. Take a look at these Knowledge Base Articles and the link to an external website which gives directions for setting up a Windows NTP Server.

How Do I Configure My Host Computer as an NTP Time Server?

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/EA90C9FF24D9A041862575EE004ED415

How Do I Configure My CompactRIO Real-Time Controllers to Synchronize to SNTP Servers?

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/F2B057C72B537EA2862572D100646D43

Setting Up NTP on Windows (External Site Link)

http://www.satsignal.eu/ntp/setup.html

If you have one of the new cRIO-9068 running the Linux RT system there may be a Linux Package available that would allow you to set up that cRIO as a SNTP Server but that use is not supported.

[kwkengineer]

Alex - is there example for setting up the SNTP Client on the cRIO-9068?

[Alex-D]

Currently the cRIO-9068 does not have built in functionality for SNTP. You could manually install NTP using Opkg but this is not supported.