Chrony Receiver

Available in: contrib Maintainers: @MovieStoreGuy, @jamesmoessis Source: opentelemetry-collector-contrib

Supported Telemetry

Overview

The chrony receiver is a pure go implementation of the command chronyc tracking to allow for portability across systems and platforms. All of the data that would typically be captured by the tracking command is made available in this receiver, see documentation for more details.

Configuration

Default

By default, the chrony receiver will default to the following configuration:

chrony/defaults:
  endpoint: unix:///var/run/chrony/chronyd.sock # The default port by chronyd to allow cmd access
  timeout: 10s # Allowing at least 10s for chronyd to respond before giving up

chrony:
  # This will result in the same configuration as above

Customised

The following options can be customised:

endpoint (required) - the address on where to communicate to chronyd
- The allowed formats are the following
  - udp://hostname:port
  - unix:///path/to/chrony.sock (Please note the triple slash)
  - unixgram:///path/to/chrony/sock
- The network type unix will be converted to unixgram but both are permissible
file_mount_path (optional) - the directory where the receiver creates a random Unix datagram reply socket
- Use it only when the collector and chronyd run in separate network namespaces (for example, different containers) but share a filesystem volume
- The directory should be dedicated to chronyd and the collector; do not share it with unrelated processes
- Prefer an ephemeral mount because ungraceful exits can leave stale otel-chrony-*.sock files behind
- When empty (default), Go’s abstract socket autobind is used, which only works within the same network namespace
- Example: /run/chrony
timeout (optional) - The total amount of time allowed to read and process the data from chronyd
- Recommendation: This value should be set above 1s to allow chronyd time to respond
collection_interval (optional) - how frequent this receiver should poll chrony
initial_delay (default = 1s): defines how long this receiver waits before starting.
metrics (optional) - Which metrics should be exported, read the documentation for complete details

Example

An example of the configuration is:

receivers:
  chrony:
    endpoint: unix:///var/run/chrony/chronyd.sock
    timeout: 10s
    collection_interval: 30s
    metrics:
      ntp.skew:
        enabled: true
      ntp.stratum:
        enabled: true

Cross-Container Deployment

When the collector and chronyd run in separate containers with different Linux network namespaces but share a filesystem volume for the Unix socket, Go’s default abstract socket autobind fails because abstract sockets are namespace-scoped. Use file_mount_path to place the client socket in a shared volume. The chronyd instance must be configured to listen on the same shared volume. In chrony.conf:

bindcmdaddress /run/chrony/chronyd.sock

The corresponding collector configuration:

receivers:
  chrony:
    endpoint: unix:///run/chrony/chronyd.sock
    file_mount_path: /run/chrony
    timeout: 10s
    collection_interval: 10s

Both containers must mount the /run/chrony directory as a shared volume. Use a directory that is writable only by chronyd and the collector. A randomly generated socket file will be created in file_mount_path and cleaned up when the collector shuts down normally. If the collector exits ungracefully, stale otel-chrony-*.sock files can remain, so prefer an ephemeral shared volume. The complete list of metrics emitted by this receiver is found in the documentation.

Metrics

Metric Name	Description	Unit	Type	Attributes
❌ `ntp.frequency.offset`	The frequency is the rate by which the system s clock would be wrong if chronyd was not correcting it.	[ppm]	Gauge	leap.status
✅ `ntp.skew`	This is the estimated error bound on the frequency.	[ppm]	Gauge
❌ `ntp.stratum`	The number of hops away from the reference system keeping the reference time	{count}	Gauge
✅ `ntp.time.correction`	The number of seconds difference between the system’s clock and the reference clock	s	Gauge	leap.status
✅ `ntp.time.last_offset`	The estimated local offset on the last clock update	s	Gauge	leap.status
❌ `ntp.time.rms_offset`	the long term average of the offset value	s	Gauge	leap.status
❌ `ntp.time.root_delay`	This is the total of the network path delays to the stratum-1 system from which the system is ultimately synchronised.	s	Gauge	leap.status

Attributes

Attribute Name	Description	Type	Values
`leap.status`	how the chrony is handling leap seconds	string	`normal`, `insert_second`, `delete_second`, `unsynchronised`

Configuration

Example Configuration

chrony/custom:
  endpoint: "udp://localhost:3030"
  timeout: 10s

Last generated: 2026-08-24

​Chrony Receiver

​Supported Telemetry

​Overview

​Configuration

​Default

​Customised

​Example

​Cross-Container Deployment

​Metrics

​Attributes

​Configuration

​Example Configuration

Chrony Receiver

Supported Telemetry

Overview

Configuration

Default

Customised

Example

Cross-Container Deployment

Metrics

Attributes

Configuration

Example Configuration