About
The requirements for time synchronization in communication networks have become increasingly stringent. Applications such as power distribution and telecommunications demand accuracies which can be tight as 100 ns. GNSS-based methods can achieve this but are susceptible to jamming and spoofing. Wired solutions like the Precision Time Protocol (PTP), White Rabbit (WR), or ELSTAB also show vulnerabilities to attacks. With the initiative of IEEE P1588k and IETF, a standard that specifies security mechanisms is currently being developed for PTP. This paper describes the development of a WR-based demonstrator that integrates and implements the draft security standard, enabling cryptographically secured time synchronization over optical fibre without loss of precision and accuracy. The WR protocol is based on existing standards, namely Ethernet IEEE 802.3, Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE) for syntonisation, and PTP for time transfer, and additionally uses the Digital Dual Mixer Time Difference (DDMTD) technique for fine phase detection. WR provides sub-nanosecond accuracy and even better precision of synchronization for large distributed systems. The software architecture of the demonstrator relies on PTP Ported to Silicon (PPSi) and Network Time Security for PTP (NTS4PTP). PPSi is a PTP service that implements the IEEE 1588-2019 (PTPv2.1) standard, and supports the PTP high-accuracy profile (White Rabbit). NTS4PTP extends PTPv2.1 with security mechanisms and is integrated with WR via an Application Programming Interface (API). The system provides integrity, spoofing, and replay protection as well as certificate-based authentication of communication peers. Initial tests over a 50 km optical fibre spool confirm the demonstrator's functionality. The synchronization precision and accuracy match that of unsecured WR transmissions, while NTS4PTP effectively protects against attacks.
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The talk
Credits and licence
- Institution
- CERN
- Speaker
- Daniel Chung
- Year
- 2026
- Language
- English
- Source
- CERN
- Licence
- CERN, as CERN states it. CERN's terms
- Attribution
- © CERN. CERN provides its audiovisual media free of charge for educational and informational use, credited to CERN; this lecture is shown in CERN's own player.
- Who can watch
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