Following conventions established by the telephone industry [BEL86], the accuracy of each server is defined by a number called thestratum, with the topmost level (primary servers) assigned as one and each level downwards (secondary servers) in the hierarchy assignedas 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 specific NTPtime-serving hosts for the current time. From those time-serving hosts, the system chooses one NTP host with which to synchronize andserve as a client to the NTP host. As soon as a host-client relationship is established, the networking device propagates the timeinformation throughout its local network.Protocol OverviewThe NTP messages to one or more servers and processes the replies as received. The server interchanges addresses and ports, fills in oroverwrites certain fields 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 severalother clocks, update the local clock, and estimate its accuracy.Figure 130. NTP FieldsImplementation InformationDell Networking systems can only be an NTP client.Configure the Network Time ProtocolConfiguring NTP is a one-step process.• Enabling NTP946 System Time and Date
