Date & Time Settings

This page displays time settings for the NetScreen device.

Device Time

The following information appears at the top of the page:

Up time: indicates the elapsed time (in number of days, hours, minutes, and seconds) since the NetScreen device was first powered on
System time: indicates the set time on the NetScreen device including the date, time (hh:mm:ss) and the GMT time zone (hh:mm)

Synchronizing the System Clock

This feature synchronizes the NetScreen system clock with the clock on the administrator's workstation to allow logging to reflect the actual time at which events occur. This feature is especially useful if you are managing the NetScreen device remotely across time zones. By synchronizing the NetScreen device system clock with the time on your workstation, logged events reflect your local time and not the time at the physical location of the NetScreen device.

To Synchronize the System Clock

Click SyncClock With Client to set the system clock of the NetScreen device to be the same as your workstation.
A dialog box asks you if the "Automatically adjust clock for daylight savings changes" option is enabled on your workstation. Click Yes or No, depending on your workstation setting.

Click Apply to save your settings.

Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) Zone

GMT is an internationally accepted standard for calculating time based on International Atomic Time. You set the time zone by specifying the number of hours and minutes by which your local time is behind or ahead of GMT. For example, if your time zone is Pacific Daylight Saving Time, your time zone is 8 hours behind GMT; as a result, you enter "-8" in the GMT offset field.

To Set the Time Zone

From the Set Time Zone, select the correct offset from GMT for your local time.
Click Apply to save your settings.

Daylight Saving Time

By default, the Automatically adjust clock for daylight saving changes (DST) option is selected. At 2:00 A.M. on the first Sunday in April, the Daylight Savings Time feature automatically adjusts the clock one hour ahead. At 2:00 A.M. on the last Sunday in October, it adjusts the clock one hour back.

If you use the NetScreen device in an area that is unaffected by daylight saving time, clear that option. If you disable this feature, no time adjustments occur.

Network Time Protocol (NTP)

NTP is a method by which computers synchronize system clocks on the Internet. To ensure that the NetScreen device always maintains the right time, it can use NTP (Network Time Protocol) to synchronize its system clock with that of an NTP server over the Internet. You can do this manually or configure the NetScreen device to perform this synchronization automatically at time intervals that you specify.

Multiple NTP Servers

You can configure up to three NTP servers on a NetScreen device: one primary server and two backup servers. When you configure the NetScreen device to synchronize its system clock automatically, it queries each configured NTP server sequentially. The device always queries the primary NTP server first. If the query is not successful, the device then queries the first backup NTP server and so on until it gets a valid reply from one of the NTP servers configured on the NetScreen device. The device makes four attempts on each NTP server before it terminates the update and logs the failure.

To find an NTP server you can synchronize your device to, you can refer to various sites on the Internet that maintain lists of NTP public time servers, such as http://www.ntp.org/.

Secure NTP Servers

You can secure NTP traffic by using MD5-based checksum to provide authentication of NTP packets. To enable the authentication of NTP traffic, you must assign a unique key id and preshared key to each NTP server you configure on a NetScreen device. The key id and preshared key serve to create a checksum, with which the NetScreen device and the NTP server can authenticate the data.

There are two types of authentication for NTP traffic: required and preferred.

Required – When you select Required authentication, the NetScreen device must include the authentication information—key id and checksum—in every packet it sends to a NTP server and must authenticate all NTP packets it receives from a NTP server. Before authentication can occur between a NetScreen device and a NTP server, the administrators of the NetScreen device and the NTP server must first exchange a key id and a preshared key. They have to exchange these manually and can do so in different ways such as through e-mail or telephone.
Preferred – When you select Preferred authentication, the NetScreen device must first operate as in Required mode by trying to authenticate all NTP traffic. If all attempts to authenticate fail, the NetScreen device then operates as if you selected no authentication. It sends out packets to a NTP server without including a key id and checksum. Essentially, although there is a preference for authentication, if authentication fails, the
NetScreen device still permits NTP traffic.

Maximum Time Adjustment

When enabling the automatic NTP synchronization feature, you can specify a maximum time adjustment value (in seconds). The maximum time adjustment value represents the acceptable time difference between the NetScreen device system clock and the time received from an NTP server. The NetScreen device only adjusts its clock with the NTP server time if the time difference between its clock and the NTP server time is within the maximum time adjustment value that you set.

To Enable and Configure NTP

Select Automatically synchronize with an Internet Time Server (NTP).
In the Update system clock every _ minutes field, enter how often (in minutes), you want the NetScreen device to synchronize its system clock with the NTP server. The value range is 1 to 1440 minutes (1 minute to 24 hours).
In the Maximum time adjustment field, enter a value (in seconds). The default value for this feature is 3 seconds and the range is 0 (no limit) to 3600 (one hour).
Optionally, you can select an authentication mode, Required or Preferred, if you want the NetScreen device to authenticate NTP traffic.
Enter the IP address or domain name of one or more NTP servers, beginning with the Primary server and then the backup servers. If you enabled authentication, also provide a unique server key ID and preshared key for each NTP server that you configure.
Click Apply to save your settings.

Note: You can only synchronize the system clock manually using the CLI. For more information on how to do this, refer to the NetScreen CLI Reference Guide or the NetScreen Concepts & Examples ScreenOS Reference Guide.