Internal Commands

? [command_keyword]

help [command_keyword]

A ‘?’ by itself will print a list of all the command keywords known to this incarnation of ntpq. A ‘?’ followed by a command keyword will print function 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 variables 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 differently, 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 currently 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 consumption. Variables which ntpq thinks should have a decodable value but didn't are marked with a trailing ‘?’.

debug [more | less | off]

With no argument, displays the current debug level. Otherwise, the debug level is changed to the indicated 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 reconfiguration 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 number 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 control 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 argument, 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 formating/interpretation done on the data is to transform nonascii data into a printable (but barely understandable) 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.