SyncE Introduction

Intel’s Westport Channel and Logan Beach NICs support a built-in GNSS module and the ability to distribute clock via Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE). This feature allows a PPS signal to be taken in via the GNSS module and redistributed to additional NICs on the same host or on different hosts. This behavior is configured on StarlingX using the clock instance type in the PTP configuration. Many of the configuration steps in this section are similar to those in the PTP Configuration section - reference this for additional details if required.

Important

Reference the user guide for their Westport Channel or Logan Beach NIC for additional information on configuring these features. The intent of this section is to explain how these parameters can be set, rather than describing each possible configuration.

Basic ‘clock’ instance configuration

General ‘clock’ information

Default global parameters

There are no supported global parameters for the clock type

Default interface parameters

NONE

Required user-supplied parameters

NONE

Other requirements

The clock type instance is a special instance used for configuring the NIC control parameters of the Westport Channel or Logan Beach NIC.

Configure a ‘clock’ instance

  1. Create the instance.

    ~(keystone_admin)]$ system ptp-instance-add myclock1 clock

  2. Create an interface for myclock1.

    ~(keystone_admin)]$ system ptp-interface-add clockint1 myclock1

  3. Add a port to the interface.

    ~(keystone_admin)]$ system host-if-ptp-assign controller-0 oam0 clockint1

  4. Add parameters to the interface.

    ~(keystone_admin)]$ system ptp-interface-parameter-add clockint1 sma1=output

  5. Assign the instance to a host.

    ~(keystone_admin)]$ system host-ptp-instance-assign controller-0 myclock1

  6. Apply the configuration.

    ~(keystone_admin)]$ system ptp-instance-apply

Clock interface parameters

Note

All parameters are scoped to the entire NIC, except for synce_rclka and synce_rclkb. This means that if sma1=input is applied to ens1f0 and sma1=output is applied to ens1f2, they will override each other and the last one processed by the system will be applied. Only the synce_rclka and synce_rclkb parameters can be configured per-interface. See the NIC user guide document for additional details.

Note

The absence of a parameter is treated as disabled.

The following parameters can be applied to the interface of a clock instance.

PTP Parameters:

  • sma1=input

  • sma1=output

  • sma2=input

  • sma2=output

  • u.fl1=output

  • u.fl2=input

  • synce_rclka=enabled

  • synce_rclkb=enabled