System Time and Date | 102350System Time and DateSystem Time and Date settings and Network Time Protocol are supported on platforms:e c s zSystem times and dates can be set and maintained through the Network Time Protocol (NTP). They arealso set through FTOS CLIs and hardware settings.This chapter includes the following sections:• Network Time Protocol• Protocol Overview• Implementation Information• Configuring Network Time Protocol• FTOS Time and Date• Configuring time and date settings• Set daylight saving timeNetwork Time ProtocolNetwork Time Protocol (NTP) synchronizes timekeeping among a set of distributed time servers andclients. The protocol also coordinates time distribution in a large, diverse network with a variety ofinterfaces. In NTP, servers maintain the time and NTP clients synchronize with a time-serving host. NTPclients choose from among several NTP servers to determine which offers the best available source of timeand the most reliable transmission of information.NTP is a fault-tolerant protocol that will automatically select the best of several available time sources tosynchronize to. Multiple candidates can be combined to minimize the accumulated error. Temporarily orpermanently insane time sources will be detected and avoided.Dell Force10 recommends configuring NTP for the most accurate time. In FTOS, other time sources canbe configured (the hardware clock and the software clock).NTP is designed to produce three products: clock offset, roundtrip delay, and dispersion, all of which arerelative to a selected reference clock.• Clock offset represents the amount to adjust the local clock to bring it into correspondence with thereference clock.
