Precision Time Protocol & Transparent Clock

Feature Overview and Configuration Guide

Introduction
Precision Time Protocol (PTP) is an Ethernet or IP-based protocol for synchronizing time
clocks on a collection of network devices using a Master/Slave distribution mechanism.

Both NTP and PTP protocols do the same thing and carry the same information. However,
they do differ in how they operate, and they have different applications, with NTP
providing general purpose time distribution, and PTP being used for high precision time
distribution.

The Transparent Clock feature is an IEEE 1588 capability that is used by bridges or
routers that assists other 1588 clocks in measuring and adjusting for packet delay. The
transparent clock computes the variable delay as the PTP packets pass through the
switch or the router.

Transparent clock is available on selected AlliedWare Plus™ platforms and is compliant

with the IEEE 1588-2008 (version 2) standard, (referred to as IEEE 1588 throughout this
document).

This guide describes how AlliedWare Plus uses PTP and the Transparent Clock in an IEEE
1588 network, and is limited to:

 End-to-End delay mechanism

 1-Step end-to-end based time stamping mode

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C613-22098-00 REV B alliedtelesis.com
 Precision Time Protocol & Transparent Clock

Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1
Products and software version that apply to this guide .............................................. 3

Overview of the PTP Feature ............................................................................................. 4

Applications ................................................................................................................. 4
What is time? ............................................................................................................... 4
Synchronization types ................................................................................................. 5
IEEE 1588 roles............................................................................................................ 5
IEEE 1588 clock types ................................................................................................. 5
IEEE 1588 delay mechanisms ..................................................................................... 6
IEEE 1588 time stamping modes................................................................................. 7

How the Transparent Clock Works..................................................................................... 8

IEEE 1588 messaging .................................................................................................. 8
Ideal IEEE 1588 End-to-End delay mechanism ........................................................... 9
How Bridges can introduce clock errors ................................................................... 11
How the End-to-End Transparent Clock overcomes clock errors ............................. 12

Limitations ........................................................................................................................ 13

Configuring PTP ............................................................................................................... 14

Global PTP clock configuration ................................................................................. 14
Enable PTP ................................................................................................................ 14
Port PTP clock configuration..................................................................................... 15

PTP Configuration Example ............................................................................................. 15

Monitoring PTP ................................................................................................................ 16

Page 2 |
 Precision Time Protocol & Transparent Clock

Products and software version that apply to this guide

This guide applies to all AlliedWare Plus products, that support IEEE 1588 Precision Time
Protocol, running version 5.4.7 or later.

Feature support may change in later software versions. For the latest information, see the
following documents:

 The product’s Datasheet

 The AlliedWare Plus Datasheet

 The product’s Command Reference

These documents are available from the above links on our website at alliedtelesis.com.

Products and software version that apply to this guide | Page 3

 Precision Time Protocol & Transparent Clock

Overview of the PTP Feature

PTP is a network-based time synchronization standard, but instead of millisecond-level
synchronization, PTP networks aim to achieve nanosecond or even picosecond-level
synchronization.

PTP time stamping is so accurate because it uses hardware time stamping instead of
software, and PTP equipment is dedicated to one specialized purpose: keeping devices
synchronized. For that reason alone, PTP networks have much sharper time resolutions,
and unlike NTP, PTP devices will actually time stamp the amount of time that
synchronization messages spend in each device, which accounts for device latency.

In this section we describe the type of applications where precise Ethernet or Ethernet/IP
timing is used, the wall clock concept, synchronization and clock types, delay
mechanisms, and time stamping modes.

Applications
There are several applications that require precise timing using Ethernet or Ethernet/IP:

 Telecom - applications, such as cellular, where not only frequency, but also phase
precision is needed in order to control hand-off of mobile phones from one cell tower
to the next.

 Factory Automation - legacy Field buses are being replaced with Ethernet-based Field
Buses and timing is needed for drive controllers and distributed I/O. For example,
robots working in conjunction with automation conveyor belts need to be precisely
timed.

 Power Substations - legacy Process buses in power substations are being replaced
with Ethernet-based buses. These buses have several components that need precision
time for handling power transfers and recording fault measurements.

What is time?
IEEE 1588 uses the Wall Clock concept, that is it uses the Time of Day (ToD), not only
hours, minutes, and seconds, but also the number of nanoseconds within the second.
More precisely, PTP carries time that consists of 48 bits worth of seconds, and 32 bits
worth of nanoseconds. The 48 bit seconds is actually the number of seconds that have
elapsed since January 1, 1970 at midnight, which is known as the PTP epoch.

Page 4 | Applications
 Precision Time Protocol & Transparent Clock

Synchronization types
Applications can use IEEE 1588 to achieve the following types of synchronization:

Frequency The nodes in the network have the 48 bits and in particular the 32 bits of time change at
the same rate, without caring necessarily what the 48/32 bit values are. Telecom
applications initially used IEEE 1588 to distribute frequency only.

Phase The nodes in the network not only have the 48/32 bits of time changing at the same rate,
but have at least the seconds boundary time occurring at the same time. That is to say,
when the nanoseconds time rolls over and increments the seconds time, all nodes do this
at the same time. These nodes may not necessarily need to know what the year, month,
day and hour are.

Time of Day The nodes in the network are not only frequency and phase synchronized, but they also
want to know what the year, month, day, hour, and seconds are, along with nanoseconds.

IEEE 1588 roles

To distribute time, IEEE 1588 is made up primarily of two main roles:

 Master - the entity distributing time to Slaves. A Master can also be a Grand Master
(GM), that gets its time from a primary reference source, typically a GPS satellite signal.

 Slave - the device that is remote from the Master and is synchronizing to it.

IEEE 1588 clock types

There are different kinds of clocks defined in IEEE 1588:

 Ordinary Clock - only has one clock port. For an Ordinary Clock, a clock port is
abstract and may not necessarily correspond to a physical port. The following can be
an Ordinary Clock:

 Master - this distributes IEEE 1588 time to Slaves

 Slave - this synchronizes IEEE 1588 time with the Master.

 Boundary Clock (BC) - Has multiple clock ports (which can be abstract). The Master
has to communicate with each Slave individually1. To help the Grand Master scale to
handle a large number of Slaves, a Boundary Clock is used. It consists of a Slave half
and a Master half. As a Slave half, it uses one clock port to synchronize itself with the
Grand Master. As a Master, it has another clock port(s) with each facing its own set of
Slaves. This Master clock port is used for redistributing the clock to another set of
Slaves.

 Transparent Clock (TC) - As will be seen in the next section, a Transparent Clock
assists in the delay measurement between a Master and a Slave by including a

1.When using End-to-End delay mechanism

Synchronization types | Page 5

 Precision Time Protocol & Transparent Clock

Correction Factor (CF) that tells the Slave how much delay the Transparent Clock
added. This in general applies to Layer 2 bridges, and a Transparent Clock's clock
ports correspond to physical interfaces.

IEEE 1588 delay mechanisms

As will be seen in detail in the next section, in order for PTP nodes to achieve phase or
Time of Day synchronization, Slaves have to determine the delay between themselves and
the Master. IEEE 1588 defines two different delay mechanisms that can be used to
determine the delay between a Master and a Slave, they are End-to-End and Peer-to-
Peer, but only one can be used at a time.

End-to-End (Delay Request/Response)

This delay mechanism requires the Slave to measure the delay between itself and the
Master (thus End-to-End). The Master and Slave send IEEE 1588 messages called DELAY
REQUEST and DELAY RESPONSE back and forth between the two, allowing the delay to
be measured. Once the delay is known, the Slave can adjust its time to be phase and
Time-of-Day synchronized with the Master.

In the ideal case, the delay between the Master and the Slave is constant, such as when
using a wire. In practice, there are Layer 2 and/or Layer 3 devices in between that make
the delay variable. As will be seen later, the role of a Transparent Clock is to add a
correction to certain PTP messages which assists the Slave in removing this variable
delay.

Peer-to-Peer
This delay mechanism requires each network element to measure the delay between its
input port and the device attached on the other end of the wire of this input port (the peer
device). As the Master sends its view of time (using SYNC messages) towards Slave(s),
each network element along the way receives the SYNC message and adds a correction
to the SYNC message. The correction includes the measured wire delay of the input port
the SYNC message was received on.

For Transparent Clocks, the correction also includes the delay through the bridge. This
correction is cumulative as it traverses nodes hop-by-hop. As the SYNC message finally
arrives at a Slave, the accumulative correction in the SYNC message will contain the total
delay from the Master to the Slave. This eliminates the Slave from having to send
messages back and forth with the Master. Peer-to-Peer is a newer IEEE 1588 technology,
and not all devices deployed today support Peer-to-Peer.

Technically, End-to-End delay mechanism can be used at the same time as Peer-to-Peer
delay mechanism as long as the two are not used along the same IEEE 1588 messaging
path. The different delay mechanisms are mutually exclusive of each other. That is to say,
between a Master and Slave inclusive, all the IEEE 1588 participating nodes must use
either the End-to-End or Peer-to-Peer delay mechanism but can not use a mix.

Page 6 | IEEE 1588 delay mechanisms

 Precision Time Protocol & Transparent Clock

IEEE 1588 time stamping modes

The key to IEEE 1588's accuracy is the ability to Time Stamp specific IEEE 1588
messages as they enter and as they leave a physical interface. Hardware is most often
used to accomplish this and is done as close to the edge of the physical port's hardware
as possible. There are two types of time stamping modes used, 1-step and 2-step:

1-step
A Time Stamp is captured in real time as the message starts transmitting out the physical
port. The message is edited on the fly to carry the captured time stamp.

2-step
A Time Stamp is captured in real time as the message starts transmitting out the physical
port, but the implementation is unable to edit the packet on the fly, and thus can not carry
the captured time stamp. A secondary message is used instead to carry the captured time
stamp. Early implementations of IEEE 1588v2 used the 2-step time stamping mode, as
the earlier hardware was unable to edit the message.

Most modern implementations support the 1-Step time stamping mode.

IEEE 1588 time stamping modes | Page 7

 Precision Time Protocol & Transparent Clock

How the Transparent Clock Works

These next sections describe how the Transparent Clock is used in an IEEE 1588 network
using the End-to-End delay mechanism. But first, here is a brief overview of IEEE 1588v2
messaging.

IEEE 1588 messaging

IEEE 1588 supports a variety of messages. Not all of these are of interest to Transparent
Clocks but they are listed here for completeness:

Event Messages - Those that require time stamping:

 SYNC - used by the Master to convey time. It is used in all scenarios.

 DELAY REQUEST - used between the Master and Slave when using End-to-End
delay Mechanism to measure delay. The Slave sends this message to the Master.

 PEER DELAY REQUEST - used between IEEE 1588 devices to measure the delay
of an incoming link. Only used when Peer-to-Peer delay mechanism is used.

 PEER_DELAY_RESPONSE - used between IEEE 1588 devices to measure the

delay of an incoming link. Only used when Peer-to-Peer delay mechanism is used.

General Messages - Those that do not require time stamping:

 FOLLOW UP - used by the Master to convey a captured time stamp of a

transmitted SYNC message. This is used in 2-Step mode to send the earlier
captured time stamp of a SYNC message.

 DELAY RESPONSE - used between the Master and Slave when using End-to-End
delay Mechanism to measure delay. The Master uses this to respond to the Slave.

 PEER DELAY RESPONSE FOLLOW UP - used between IEEE 1588 devices to

measure the delay of an incoming link. Only used when Peer-to-Peer delay
mechanism is used with 2-Step mode.

 ANNOUNCE - is sent and received by local clock ports with a variety of information.
It can be used to determine which one out of several possible Masters is to be
selected as the Best Master. It can also be used between Master and Slave to
negotiate a unicast service.

 MANAGEMENT - used between management devices and clocks.

 SIGNALLING - used by clocks for conveying things such as how often to send
messages, supporting unicast services instead of multicasting etc.

A Transparent Clock is primarily interested only in Event messages.

Page 8 | IEEE 1588 messaging

 Precision Time Protocol & Transparent Clock

Ideal IEEE 1588 End-to-End delay mechanism

Figure 1 below shows a Master Ordinary Clock and a Slave Ordinary Clock that are
connected together by a yellow Ethernet cable. In this figure, the Master can be
considered as the Grand Master (GM) where it has acquired Time of Day (ToD)
synchronization from a system such as a Global Positioning System (GPS).

The Master as well as the Slave have a running time stamp clock that is available at its
physical port. The Slave's time clock however is not yet synchronized with the Master,
and the following describes how synchronization is achieved:

A typical PTP sequence involves a series of four messages between Master and Slave:

 The initial sync message from Master to Slave

 A delay request message from Slave to Master

 A final delay response message from Master to Slave

This sequence produces four different time stamps:

 T1 when the Master sends the initial sync message

 T2 when the Slave receives the initial sync message

 T3 when the Slave sends the delay request

 T4 when the Master receives the delay request

Figure 1: Ideal IEEE 1588 end-to-end delay mechanism

M

S
a

la
st

ve
e
r

T1
SYNC T1
Capture Master’s
T2 clock time and
frequency lock
to it.

Next complete
Delay Request T3
the delay

T4

Delay Response T4

Delay is average of
forward and reverse
delays:
((T4-T3)+(T2-T1))/2

Ideal IEEE 1588 End-to-End delay mechanism | Page 9

 Precision Time Protocol & Transparent Clock

Here is a more detailed look at the PTP sequence shown above:

1. The IEEE 1588 Master periodically sends out an IEEE 1588 SYNC message to the IEEE
1588 Slave device. As the SYNC message leaves the Master's physical interface, it
captures a running time stamp in the Master, shown as T1. In the 1-Step mode that is
being illustrated here, the Master sets the "Origin Time Stamp" field in the SYNC
message to T1 before the message completely exits the interface.

2. The IEEE 1588 Slave receives the SYNC message and its running time stamp clock
captures the time (T2) that the SYNC message starts to arrive at its physical port.

 Although the Slave could set its time stamp clock to that of the Master using T2, it
would leave the Slave's clock in an inaccurate state due to the propagation delay
of the wire. Also, the Slave's time stamp clock will be running slightly faster or
slower than the Master's. In the beginning stages, although not shown, the next
stage of operation is for the Slave to try and frequency lock its running clock with
the Master's. During this phase, the Slave will only receive SYNC messages until it
believes its time stamp clock is changing at the same rate as the Master's.

 After frequency locking, the Slave will next proceed to determine what the delay is
between itself and the Master.

3. The Slave next calculates what the delay is by sending a DELAY REQUEST message
to the Master. As the message starts to be transmitted out the Slave's physical
interface, the Slave's running time stamp clock is used to capture the time (T3) and the
Slave stores this time while it waits for the reply.

4. The Master receives the DELAY REQUEST and uses the Master's running time stamp
clock to capture the time (T4) as the message starts to be received on its physical
interface. After retrieving the captured T4 value, the Master will shortly thereafter send
the Slave a DELAY RESPONSE containing the captured T4 value.

5. The Slave receives the DELAY RESPONSE message and extracts the T4 value in it.

 The Slave can calculate the reverse delay as (T4-T3). It can then adjust its time
stamp clock to account for the wire delay, at least in the beginning stages. After a
few iterations of this to make sure the reverse delay measurement is stable, the
Slave can now measure the forward delay using captures of (T2-T1).

 Finally, instead of using just the reverse delay, IEEE 1588 uses both the forward and
reverse path delay in steady state to account for the wire delay. This delay is called
the mean path delay, calculated as {(T4-T3) + (T2-T1)}/2. Once this is computed,
the Slave will readjust its clock to align with the Master's which now takes into
account the wire delay.

Page 10 | Ideal IEEE 1588 End-to-End delay mechanism

 Precision Time Protocol & Transparent Clock

How Bridges can introduce clock errors

The figure below shows how adding a couple of Ethernet bridges can introduce errors in
the delay computation. To start with, the Slave is not synchronized with the Master.

Figure 2: Bridges can introduce clock errors in delay computation

x9

x9
M

S
a

la
30

30
st

ve
e
T1 r
Sync T1

T2+∆ƒ

Delay Request T3

T4+∆ƒ

Delay Response T4

Compute average
forward and
reverse delays:
(T4+∆r-T3)+(T2+∆ƒ-T1))/2

 As the SYNC message leaves the Master, it traverse a couple of regular Ethernet
bridges which do not participate in IEEE 1588.

 The bridges forward the SYNC message after incurring some delay going through each
bridge. In IEEE 1588 terms, the delay going through the bridge is called the Residence
Time (RT). The delay can vary depending on how much traffic load the bridge has to
handle via queuing delays. Under no load conditions, the queuing delay can be nearly
zero, leaving a fairly constant propagation time through the bridge. However under high
load conditions, the queues can build up causing the IEEE 1588 messages to take
longer to leave the bridge. The result is a variable delay. This gets worse as more
bridges are added along the path.

 The same occurs in the reverse direction for the DELAY REQUEST messages. (The
DELAY RESPONSE message is not time critical so bridge delays have no impact on
them).

 The Slave receives several SYNC messages over time, each have a different delay
denoted by T2+Delta-Forward. The Slave also receives several DELAY RESPONSE
messages containing T4 which will also vary by T4+Delta-Reverse.

The result is that the Slave's computation of the mean delay will be jittered by Delta-
Forward and Delta-Reverse and in turn the Slaves time clock will be jittered as well as it
constantly readjusts its time clock.

How Bridges can introduce clock errors | Page 11

 Precision Time Protocol & Transparent Clock

How the End-to-End Transparent Clock overcomes clock errors

The figure below shows how clock errors can be overcome when Ethernet bridges
implement a Transparent Clock by adding an accumulative correction.

Figure 3: Overcoming errors using end-to-end Transparent clock

x9

x9
M

S
a

la
st

30

30

ve
e
r

SYNC (T1,CF=0)
T1
SYNC (T1,∑CF)

RT SYNC (T1,∑CF)

T2+∆ƒ-∑CF
RT

Delay Request (CF=0)

Delay Request (∑CF) T3
Delay Request (∑CF)
RT
T4±∆
RT

Delay Response (T4,∑CF)

Compute average
forward and
reverse delays:
((T4+∆r-∑CF-T3)+(T2+∆ƒ-∑CF-T1))/2

∑CF=∆ƒ,r then
((T4-T3)+(T2-T1))/2

 The Master sends a SYNC message which in addition to containing a Origin Time
Stamp field (which contains the Master's Time of Day), also contains a Correction Field
(CF). The Master sets the CF to 0 prior to sending the SYNC message.

 As the SYNC message arrives at the first bridge, the bridge uses its time stamping
clock to capture the time the message starts arriving at its physical port. Similarly as
the SYNC message starts to leave the bridge's physical port heading toward the Slave,
it uses the same time stamping clock to capture the time the message starts leaving
the physical port. With these two time stamp values, the bridge is able to calculate the
Residence Time (RT) of the message, which is the delay through bridge, by taking the
difference of the two captured time stamps2. As a 1-Step device, the bridge will add its
residence time to the CF of the SYNC message as it leaves the exiting physical
interface heading towards the Slave. In the figure, this is shown as SumCF.

2.The transparent clock's time stamping clock need not be synchronized with a Master, as it is
computing the difference.

Page 12 | How the End-to-End Transparent Clock overcomes clock errors

 Precision Time Protocol & Transparent Clock

 The SYNC message arrives at the second bridge which also calculates its Residence
Time and "adds" it to the CF portion of the SYNC message. The CF is accumulative as
makes its way to the Slave. The Slave then receives the SYNC message, and captures
its time stamp (T2) and extracts and stores away both T1 and CF from the message.

 Similarly in the reverse direction, the Slave sends out a DELAY REQUEST message to
the Master with CF=0 and captures T3, and the bridges add their Residence Time to
the CF portion of the DELAY REQUEST message in an additive way. When the DELAY
REQUEST message arrives at the Master, the Master time stamps as usual (T4). The
Master then takes both the T4 captured time stamp and the CF that arrived and sends
a DELAY RESPONSE to the Slave.

 The Slave now has in this one sequence of SYNC, DELAY REQUEST, DELAY
RESPONSE messages: T1, T2 and accumulative CF in the forward direction, as well as
T4, T3 and the accumulative CF in the reverse direction. At this point, the time delay
error that was introduced by both bridges (shown as Delta) has been told to the Slave
via the accumulative CFs. From the figure, this is shown as SumCF = Delta-Forward or
Delta-Reverse. The Slave can effectively subtract out the bridge's residence time
(which may be small under low traffic load conditions, or large under high load
conditions) during each message sequence. This leaves the Slave with the wire delay
and thus is the same as in the first case above when no bridges were used.

Note: It is important to note that the End-to-End delay mechanism in IEEE 1588 is not
immune to Layer2 or Layer 3 topology changes. Even though the bridges that
implement End-to-End Transparent Clock effectively take their portion of the delay
out of the equation, they do not take the wire delay out of the equation. If a
topology change results in more wire delay or less wire delay, then the Slave will
see a change in the computed delay with the Master and take some amount of time
to stabilize its clock as it readjusts to the new delay.

Limitations
The current AlliedWare Plus implementation of the IEEE 1588 Transparent Clock protocol
has the following restrictions:

 2-Step mode is not supported. Only 1-Step is supported.

 Peer-to-Peer delay mechanism is not supported. Only End-to-End delay mechanism is

supported.

 VCStack is not supported.

 PTP messages (except for PEER_DELAY_REQUEST/RESPONSE) are switched

through the AlliedWare Plus Layer 2 Transparent Clock like any other tagged or
untagged packets. You must set up the VLAN that switches these messages on all the
ports that are part of an IEEE 1588 domain.

How the End-to-End Transparent Clock overcomes clock errors | Page 13

 Precision Time Protocol & Transparent Clock

Configuring PTP
PTP has two configuration levels:

 Global—where you can enable or disable PTP globally on a device. You can also
configure various PTP clock parameters to help determine which clock in the network
has the highest priority to be selected as the Grand Master.

 Port—where you can configure the interface port or LAG that is to be used for PTP
transparent clock.

Global PTP clock configuration

This version supports a single instance of a PTP clock. To create and configure the global
PTP clock instance, use the following command:

awplus(config)#ptp-clk transparent transport-type ethernet delay-mechanism

e2e step-type onestep
awplus(config-ptp-clk)#

Note: For a Transparent Clock using the End-to-End Delay mechanism, the transport-
type setting is ignored in general, as target AlliedWare Plus devices can handle
IEEE 1588 packets in any of the above encapsulation types.

There are other options available on the CLI for this command, but they are not currently
supported.

To destroy the PTP clock instance, use the following command:

awplus(config)#no ptp-clk

Note: This will also destroy the PTP port configurations if any such configuration already
exists. See the command clock-port.

Enable PTP
By default, PTP is disabled. To enable the PTP clock in the AlliedWare Plus device, use the
following command:

awplus(config)#ptp global

To disable the PTP clock in the AlliedWare Plus device, use the following command:

awplus(config)#no ptp global

Note this command can be used even if there is no global configuration yet.

Page 14 | Global PTP clock configuration

 Precision Time Protocol & Transparent Clock

Port PTP clock configuration

Configure the switch port or LAG that is to be used for PTP transparent clock. This allows
the Correction Field to be updated as PTP Event packets are forwarded through the
switch. Do this for every interface port or LAG that is to participate in PTP Transparent
Clock. Unconfigured ports will not update the Correction Field correctly and consequently
their value will be indeterminate. For a Transparent Clock, Ethernet switch ports or LAGs
ports are supported on AlliedWare Plus devices.

Although only one global PTP Clock instance is supported, it must be configured first
before configuring the PTP Port. See the command ptp-clk

To configure a PTP port, first get into the interface port or interface LAG context, then
simply enter the clock-port command which allows Transparent Clock processing on that
interface:

awplus(config-if)#clock-port
awplus(config-clk-port)#

Note: For AlliedWare Plus devices operating as End-to-End Transparent clocks, PTP
packets that are encapsulated in Ethernet are Layer 2 switched, based on VLAN.
For PTP frames arriving on one set of interface ports and needing to egress other
interface port(s), ensure that the VLAN is a member of the necessary set of ports.
Also ensure that the tagging of the VLAN on those ports is set properly.

PTP Configuration Example

1. First, configure the global PTP clock instance parameters. In this example, the
AlliedWare Plus device is configured for a transparent clock using Layer 2 Ethernet as
the Transport Layer and for use with an End-to-End delay mechanism:

awplus(config)#ptp-clk transparent transporttype ethernet

delay-mechanism e2e
awplus(config-ptp-clk)#exit
awplus(config)#

2. Next, enable the global PTP clock instance:

awplus(config)#ptp global

3. Finally, go to the interface ports that are to be used for PTP. Assuming the PTP
messages are to be switched untagged through the device, first configure an untagged
vlan for the ports. In this example, it also assumes the ports have already been
configured in trunk mode, and the untagged vlan for IEEE 1588 PTP frames is to be
configured as the native vlan.

awplus(config)#interface port1.0.3-1.0.4
awplus(config-if)#switchport trunk native vlan 300
awplus(config-if)#clock-port
awplus(config-clk-port)#exit
awplus(config-if)#

Port PTP clock configuration | Page 15

 Precision Time Protocol & Transparent Clock

Monitoring PTP
Global Use the show ptp data transparent command to show the global PTP clock’s
configuration.

awplus# show ptp data transparent

CLOCK(Transparent)
Global Enable : Enabled
Clock Identity : 00:0c:25:ff:fe:03:92:47
Number Of Ports : 2
Transport Type : Ethernet
Delay Mechanism : End To End
Primary Domain : 0
Step-type : One Step

Where:

 Clock <clock-mode> - conveys the type of clock this instance is running.

"Transparent" is the only mode currently supported.

 Global Enable - indicates that the global PTP clock is enabled or disabled. See the
command [no] ptp global. If disabled, then this device will not do any IEEE 1588
processing.

 Clock Identity <clk-id> - this device's Clock Identity using EUI-64 assigned numbers.
Example: 00:0c:25:ff:fe:26:95:bf. For End-to-End TC, Clock Identity is not used but is
shown here for informational purposes.

 Number of Ports <number-ports> - this is the number of interface ports and interface
LAGs that have been configured to run PTP.

 Transport Type - this indicates the IEEE 1588 message encapsulation that this device
supports. Currently only "Ethernet" encapsulation is supported, as far as the
configuration is concerned. However, the "Ethernet" setting also supports IPv4 and
IPv6 encapsulations.

 Delay Mechanism - this is the delay mechanism configured for this clock instance.
Only "End to End" is currently supported.

 Primary Domain <domain> - for Transparent Clock, this indicates the primary domain
that the Transparent Clock is syntonized to. Syntonization3 is not currently supported.
This will always show the IEEE 1588 default value of "0".

 Step-type - "1-Step" is currently supported.

3. Syntonization, in simple terms, is the process of accounting for the clock frequency
difference between Master and Slave.

Page 16 | Port PTP clock configuration

 Port/LAG Use the show ptp port command to display the PTP clock port(s) configuration along
with the IEEE 1588 PTP "Data Set" as per the standard.

awplus# show ptp port

=====================================================================
% Transparent clock
Global Enable : Enabled
Clock Identity : 00:0c:25:ff:fe:03:92:47
Port Number : 1 (Interface port1.0.1)
Peer Delay Request Interval (log base 2) : 1
Peer Mean Path Delay : 0
Faulty Flag : False
=====================================================================
% Transparent clock
Global Enable : Enabled
Clock Identity : 00:0c:25:ff:fe:03:92:47
Port Number : 2 (Interface port1.0.2)
Peer Delay Request Interval (log base 2) : 1
Peer Mean Path Delay : 0
Faulty Flag : False

Where:

 Global Enable - this indicates whether the global PTP configuration has been enabled
or not. See the command: [no] ptp global.

 Clock Identity <clk-id> - this device's Clock Identity using EUI-64 assigned numbers.
Example: 00:0c:25:ff:fe:26:95:bf. Note: Except for Transparent Clock using End-to-End
delay mechanism, most other clock types use the Clock Identity in 1588 Messages. For
End-to-End TC, Clock Identity is shown here for informational purposes.

 Port Number <port-id> - this is the interface port number or interface LAG number.
Example: port1.0.4, sa1, po1. The output of this show command is repeated for each
interface that has been configured. "Port Number" is an integer and starts with the
lowest current value in use along with the corresponding interface shown. "Port
Number" increments sequentially.

 Peer Delay Request Interval <pdelay-req-intvl> - for Transparent Clocks running

Peer-to-Peer delay mechanism, this is the interval for sending Pdelay Request
messages shown in log base 2. For Transparent Clocks running End-to-End, this is not
applicable. Only End-to-End delay mechanism is currently supported and thus the
interval is considered as 0 which for log base 2 is always shown as "1".

 Peer Mean Path Delay <peer-path-delay> - for Transparent Clocks running Peer-to-
Peer delay mechanism, this is the measured mean delay to the peer over this port. For
Transparent Clocks running End-to-End, this is not applicable. In this version, only End-
to-End delay mechanism is supported and is always shown as "0".

 Faulty Flag- for Transparent Clock, this indicates whether the interface port or interface
LAG is operationally down, shown as "True", or operationally up, shown as "False".
C613-22098-00 REV B

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