Local Time Synchronization; Setting The Date; Setting Time Zones - Brocade Communications Systems 300 Hardware Installation Manual

Date and time settings

Local time synchronization

You can synchronize the local time of the principal or primary fabric configuration server (FCS) switch to a maximum of eight external
network time protocol (NTP) servers. To keep the time in your SAN current, it is recommended that the principal or primary FCS switch
has its time synchronized with at least one external NTP server. The other switches in the fabric will automatically take their time from the
principal or primary FCS switch.
All switches in the fabric maintain the current clock server value in non-volatile memory. By default, this value is the local clock server
<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. If a switch with v5.3.0 or later has entered the fabric it will be able to store the list
and the active servers; pre-5.3.0 Fabric OS switches will ignore the new list parameter in the payload and will update only the active
server address.
If the active NTP server configured is IPv6, then distributing the same in the fabric will not be possible to switches earlier than v5.3.0
because IPv6 is supported for Fabric OS version 5.3.0 and later. The default value LOCL will be distributed to pre-5.3.0 switches.
The tsClockServer command accepts multiple server addresses in either IPv4, IPv6, or 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.

Setting the date

1. Log into the switch using the default password, which is password.
2. Enter the date command, using the following syntax:
date "mmddHHMMyy"
The values are:
• mm is the month; valid values are 01 through 12.
• dd is the date; valid values are 01 through 31.
• HH is the hour; valid values are 00 through 23.
• MM is minutes; valid values are 00 through 59.
• yy is the year; valid values are 00 through 99 (values greater than 69 are interpreted as 1970 through 1999, and values
less than 70 are interpreted as 2000-2069).
switch:admin> date
Fri Sep 29 17:01:48 UTC 2007
switch:admin> date "0927123007"
Thu Sep 27 12:30:00 UTC 2007
switch:admin>

Setting time zones

You must perform the procedure on all switches for which the time zone must be set. However, you only need to set the time zone once
on each switch, because the value is written to nonvolatile memory.
Use one of the two following procedures to set the time zone.
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Brocade 300 Hardware Installation Guide
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