Question

I’m looking for an code example of NTP client write in C. I found this:
Fixed some things on code,and it’s able to compile. But after “sending data..” it don’t nothing. I have no idea how to fix this. Where is problem into code or server? Thanks in advance.

/*
 * This code will query a ntp server for the local time and display
 * it.  it is intended to show how to use a NTP server as a time
 * source for a simple network connected device.
 * This is the C version.  The orignal was in Perl
 *
 * For better clock management see the offical NTP info at:
 * http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~ntp/
 *
 * written by Tim Hogard ([e-mail])
 * Thu Sep 26 13:35:41 EAST 2002
 * Converted to C Fri Feb 21 21:42:49 EAST 2003
 * this code is in the public domain.
 * it can be found here http://www.abnormal.com/~thogard/ntp/
 *
 */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
#include <netdb.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <string.h>

void ntpdate();

int main() {
    ntpdate();
    return 0;
}

void ntpdate() {
char    *hostname="tick.usno.navy.mil";
int portno=123;     //NTP is port 123
int maxlen=1024;        //check our buffers
int i;          // misc var i
unsigned char msg[48]={010,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0};    // the packet we send
unsigned long  buf[maxlen]; // the buffer we get back
//struct in_addr ipaddr;        //  
struct protoent *proto;     //
struct sockaddr_in server_addr;
int s;  // socket
int tmit;   // the time -- This is a time_t sort of

//use Socket;
//
//#we use the system call to open a UDP socket
//socket(SOCKET, PF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, getprotobyname("udp")) or die "socket: $!";
proto=getprotobyname("udp");
s=socket(PF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, proto->p_proto);
if(s) {
    perror("asd");
    printf("socket=%d\n",s);
}
//
//#convert hostname to ipaddress if needed
//$ipaddr   = inet_aton($HOSTNAME);
memset( &server_addr, 0, sizeof( server_addr ));
server_addr.sin_family=AF_INET;
server_addr.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr(hostname);
//argv[1] );
//i   = inet_aton(hostname,&server_addr.sin_addr);
server_addr.sin_port=htons(portno);
//printf("ipaddr (in hex): %x\n",server_addr.sin_addr);

/*
 * build a message.  Our message is all zeros except for a one in the
 * protocol version field
 * msg[] in binary is 00 001 000 00000000 
 * it should be a total of 48 bytes long
*/

// send the data
printf("sending data..\n");
i=sendto(s,msg,sizeof(msg),0,(struct sockaddr *)&server_addr,sizeof(server_addr));

// get the data back
i=recv(s,buf,sizeof(buf),0);
printf("recvfr: %d\n",i);
//perror("recvfr:");

//We get 12 long words back in Network order
/*
for(i=0;i<12;i++)
    printf("%d\t%-8x\n",i,ntohl(buf[i]));
*/

/*
 * The high word of transmit time is the 10th word we get back
 * tmit is the time in seconds not accounting for network delays which
 * should be way less than a second if this is a local NTP server
 */

tmit=ntohl((time_t)buf[10]);    //# get transmit time
//printf("tmit=%d\n",tmit);

/*
 * Convert time to unix standard time NTP is number of seconds since 0000
 * UT on 1 January 1900 unix time is seconds since 0000 UT on 1 January
 * 1970 There has been a trend to add a 2 leap seconds every 3 years.
 * Leap seconds are only an issue the last second of the month in June and
 * December if you don't try to set the clock then it can be ignored but
 * this is importaint to people who coordinate times with GPS clock sources.
 */

tmit-= 2208988800U; 
//printf("tmit=%d\n",tmit);
/* use unix library function to show me the local time (it takes care
 * of timezone issues for both north and south of the equator and places
 * that do Summer time/ Daylight savings time.
 */


//#compare to system time
printf("Time: %s",ctime(&tmit));
i=time(0);
//printf("%d-%d=%d\n",i,tmit,i-tmit);
printf("System time is %d seconds off\n",i-tmit);
}

Answer 1

It is not sure whether sendto() is blocking.

To test this you might like to add

printf("receiving data..\n");

prior to the call to recv().

---

Also the recv() call could block.

It awaits sizeof(buf) bytes, which is 1024* sizeof(long).

From the comments in the source we learn that 12 long words are expected, so you might consider telling recv() this by changing the call to recv() like so:

i = recv(s, buf, 12*sizeof(buf[0]), 0);

---

Despite all this I’d strongly recommend to add error checking to system calls, like sendo() and recv() also are. To do so for these two, test the value they return to be -1, and do some error handling if so.

For other system calls other values might indicate an error. See man <method name> for details.