Administrator Guide
Following conventions established by the telephone industry [BEL86], the accuracy of each server is dened by a number called the
stratum, with the topmost level (primary servers) assigned as one and each level downwards (secondary servers) in the hierarchy assigned
as one greater than the preceding level.
Dell Networking OS synchronizes with a time-serving host to get the correct time. You can set Dell Networking OS to poll specic NTP
time-serving hosts for the current time. From those time-serving hosts, the system chooses one NTP host with which to synchronize and
serve as a client to the NTP host. As soon as a host-client relationship is established, the networking device propagates the time
information throughout its local network.
Protocol Overview
The NTP messages to one or more servers and processes the replies as received. The server interchanges addresses and ports, lls in or
overwrites certain elds in the message, recalculates the checksum, and returns it immediately.
Information included in the NTP message allows each client/server peer to determine the timekeeping characteristics of its other peers,
including the expected accuracies of their clocks. Using this information, each peer is able to select the best time from possibly several
other clocks, update the local clock, and estimate its accuracy.
Figure 130. NTP Fields
Implementation Information
Dell Networking systems can only be an NTP client.
Congure the Network Time Protocol
Conguring NTP is a one-step process.
• Enabling NTP
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System Time and Date