cRIO-9068 & NI-TimeSync

[gregopher]

I have test system with a cRIO-9068, a cRIO-9024 (w/ 9114 chassis), and a 9146 expansion chassis.  None of them are even close to being synchronized, and it is a bit frustrating.  

How can I synchronize the 9024 rack and the 9068 rack?  I have NI-TimeSync 1.3 installed on the 9024 system, but I didn't see an option to installed TimeSync on the 9068 cRIO.  Does the cRIO-9068 support the software IEEE-1588 protocol provided by the NI-TimeSync addon?

[MajorTom]

Hi gregopher,

Currently NI-TimeSync 1.3 is not supported on Linux RT. This is something that's in the works but there is no ETA.

[JamesB. · Accepted solution]

In the meantime, you could explore using an open-source implementation of 1588 on the 9068, like PTPd. With this solution, I think you'd probably achieve synchronization on the order of tens of milliseconds.

[gregopher]

Thanks for the tip.  Tens of milliseconds is OK for my application.

[Ozziee]

HI,

I am trying to get PTP working on a cRIO9068, I wasnt able to find any packages for the PTP deamon on the packages repository specified in the cRIO repo config file. Do you have any information as to how I can create the package from the source files myself, or is there another way I can use OPKG to load these files on the cRIO?

Thank you,

[JamesB.]

I'm no expert, but since this is your first post, I'm guessing you aren't, either.

First, do you really need an opkg at all? Seems to me you could download the PTPd source code, build it locally on your target, and run it. What value does having an opkg provide?

Assuming it does provide some value, have you researched whether other repositories might already have a PTPd opkg available that you can use? For example, it looks like the OpenWRT project hosts a repository that contains the package you need: http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/packages/  (search for ptpd_2.1.0-2...ipk)

If you do have to build it yourself, it looks there are utilities for building opkgs from source. You'll have to fill in some of the details yourself, but this is a good place to start: http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/opkg-utils/tree/opkg-buildpackage

Hope this helps!

[Ozziee]

Thanks for the info, when it comes to this cRIO linux stuff, i'm far from expert. My understanding is that I need to use OPKG to install anything linux to the cRIO otherwise I need to install all sort of compiling/building packages to get it to work.

I tried the repo you pointed to but I get a message saying that it is incompatible with the architectures configured, I tried both ar7 as well as the ar71xx, the architectures I am working with are mostly arm based, unless I'm mistaken and can just add the AR7 to the list in "/etc/opkg/arch.conf" to get OPKG to install the AR7 packages, but as is OPKG keeps coming back with an incompatable architecture message when I try to install these packages.

I will try to download the tools required to compile the source files on target and see how it goes, but my last attempt to do this caused the cRIO to go into safe mode after reboot and I had to reformat to get it back to working condition.

[JamesB.]

Whoops, I guess I take it for granted that things like make and gcc are installed on Linux systems. Now I see that compiling the source code yourself is a bigger hurdle.

I wouldn't expect adding AR7 to the list of architectures to work. It might allow you to download the package, but I'd expect something else after that to blow up before you got to a working PTPd stack.

If compiling from source doesn't Just Work (TM), I'd suggest starting a new thread. We've deviated slightly from the original question, and this thread is already marked as answered. If you do create a new thread, we can leave a breadcrumb link here for posterity.

[Franjo_Tonkovic]

Is there any progres with adding direct NI support for time synchronization on Linux RTs?

Thanks,

Regards

Franjo Tonković

Veski

[JamesB.]

There is! NI-TimeSync 14.5 adds PTP support for NI Linux RT targets. Due to some technical issues, ARM-based controllers will run as slaveonly by default. For for more information, please see the readme and the KnowledgeBase article (info code: ARMTargetSlaveOnly).