Linuxptp is an implementation of the Precision Time Protocol (PTP) according to IEEE standard 1588 for Linux. Features include: - support for hardware and software time stamping via the Linux SO_TIMESTAMPING socket option. - support for the Linux PTP Hardware Clock (PHC) subsystem by using the clock_gettime family of calls, including the new clock_adjtimex system call - implementation of Boundary Clock (BC) and Ordinary Clock (OC) - transport over UDP/IPv4, UDP/IPv6, and raw Ethernet (Layer 2) - support for IEEE 802.1AS-2011 in the role of end station

PTP provides higher precision and faster synchronization than NTP even without hardware support. With hardware support, sub-microsecond accuracy can be expected. Whereas NTP is intended for WAN use, PTP is designed for LAN environments and makes use of UDP multicast.