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Chrony Receiver

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

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Supported Telemetry

Metrics

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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.

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Configuration

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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Metrics

Metric NameDescriptionUnitTypeAttributes
❌ ntp.frequency.offsetThe frequency is the rate by which the system s clock would be wrong if chronyd was not correcting it.ppmGaugeleap.status
✅ ntp.skewThis is the estimated error bound on the frequency.ppmGauge
❌ ntp.stratumThe number of hops away from the reference system keeping the reference time{count}Gauge
✅ ntp.time.correctionThe number of seconds difference between the system’s clock and the reference clocksecondsGaugeleap.status
✅ ntp.time.last_offsetThe estimated local offset on the last clock updatesecondsGaugeleap.status
❌ ntp.time.rms_offsetthe long term average of the offset valuesecondsGaugeleap.status
❌ ntp.time.root_delayThis is the total of the network path delays to the stratum-1 system from which the system is ultimately synchronised.secondsGaugeleap.status

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Attributes

Attribute NameDescriptionTypeValues
leap.statushow the chrony is handling leap secondsstringnormal, insert_second, delete_second, unsynchronised

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Configuration

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Example Configuration

chrony/custom:
  endpoint: "udp://localhost:3030"
  timeout: 10s
Last generated: 2026-06-01