Brocade FastIron Ethernet Switch Administration Guide - Manual (Page 39)

• NTP can operate in authenticate or non-authenticate mode. Only symmetric key authentication is
supported.
• By default, NTP operates in default VLAN and it can be changed.
Limitations
• FastIron devices cannot operate as primary time server (or stratum 1). It only serves as secondary
time server (stratum 2 to 15).
• NTP server and client cannot communicate using hostnames.
• NTP is not supported on VRF enabled interface or ve.
• Autokey public key authentication is not supported.
• The NTP version 4 Extension fields are not supported. The packets containing the extension fields
are discarded.
• The NTP packets having control (6) or private (7) packet mode is not supported. NTP packets with
control and private modes will be discarded.
• On reboot or switchover, all the NTP state information will be lost and time synchronization will start
fresh.
• NTP multicast server/client and manycast functionalities are not supported.
• NTP versions 1 and 2 are not supported.
• NTP MIB is not supported.
NTP and SNTP
FastIron 07.3.00c and earlier releases implements SNTP for time synchronization. In FastIron 07.3.00d,
NTP can be used for time synchronization in FCX devices with router images. From FastIron 8.0
release onwards, NTP can be used for time synchronization in all FastIron devices with both router and
switch images.
NTP and SNTP implementations cannot operate at the same time and one of them has to be disabled.
On downgrading from FastIron 07.3.00d to FastIron 07.3.00c or lower version, the entire NTP
configuration is lost.
NTP server
A NTP server will provide the correct network time on your device using the Network time protocol
(NTP). Network Time Protocol can be used to synchronize the time on devices across a network. A
NTP time server is used to obtain the correct time from a time source and adjust the local time in each
connecting device.
The NTP server functionality is enabled when you use the ntp command, provided SNTP configuration
is already removed.
When the NTP server is enabled, it will start listening on the NTP port for client requests and responds
with the reference time. Its stratum number will be the upstream time server's stratum + 1. The stratum
1 NTP server is the time server which is directly attached to the authoritative time source.
The device cannot be configured as primary time server with stratum 1. It can be configured as
secondary time server with stratum 2 to 15 to serve the time using the local clock.
The NTP server is stateless and will not maintain any NTP client information.
Limitations
FastIron Ethernet Switch Administration Guide 39
53-1003075-02