Brocade Fabric OS Administrators Guide (Supporting Fabric OS v7.3.0) - Manual (Page 55)

4. Select a country location at the prompt.
5. Enter the appropriate number at the prompt to specify the time zone region of Ctrl-D to quit.
Network time protocol
To keep the time in your SAN current, you should synchronize the local time of the principal or primary
FCS switch with at least one external Network Time Protocol (NTP) server.
The principal or primary FCS switch connects to the NTP server and broadcasts time service updates to
all switches in the fabric. The other switches in the fabric automatically take their time from the principal
or primary FCS switch.
You can synchronize the local time of the principal or primary FCS switch to a maximum of eight
external NTP servers.
All switches in the fabric maintain the current NTP clock server value in nonvolatile memory. By default,
this value is the local clock (LOCL) of the principal or primary FCS switch. Changes to the clock server
value on the principal or primary FCS switch are propagated to all switches in the fabric.
When a new switch enters the fabric, the time server daemon of the principal or primary FCS switch
sends out the addresses of all existing clock servers and the time to the new switch. When a switch
enters the fabric, it stores the list and the active servers.
If Virtual Fabrics is enabled, the switch behavior is as follows:
• All switches in a given chassis must be configured for the same set of NTP servers. This ensures that
time does not go out of sync in the chassis. It is not recommended to configure LOCL in the NTP
server list.
• All default switches in the fabric can query the NTP server. If Virtual Fabrics is not enabled, only the
principal or primary FCS switch can query the NTP server.
• The logical switches in a chassis get their clock information from the default logical switch, and not
from the principal or primary FCS switch.
Synchronizing the local time with an external source
The tsClockServer command accepts multiple server addresses in IPv4, IPv6, or Domain Name
System (DNS) name formats. When multiple NTP server addresses are passed, tsClockServer sets
the first obtainable address as the active NTP server. The rest are stored as backup servers that can
take over if the active NTP server fails. The principal or primary FCS switch synchronizes its time with
the NTP server every 64 seconds.
1. Connect to the switch and log in using an account assigned to the admin role.
2. Enter the tsClockServer command.
switch:admin> tsclockserver
"ntp1
;ntp2
"
In this syntax, ntp1 is the IP address or DNS name of the first NTP server, which the switch must be
able to access. The second variable, ntp2, is the second NTP server and is optional. The operand
"ntp1;ntp2" is optional; by default, this value is LOCL, which uses the local clock of the principal or
primary FCS switch as the clock server.
Example of setting the NTP server
switch:admin> tsclockserver
LOCL
switch:admin> tsclockserver "10.1.2.3"
Network time protocol
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