setting time on 1130AG series Access Point

Kevin Melton · ‎10-14-2009

I noticed on one of my clients AP's which is an 1130AG series that it had a setting for SNTP. I was a little surprised that it did not have the capability to use regular NTP.

The SNTP servers configured for the AP were two Cisco routers.

Is this a common configuration? Is there a way to upgrade so that the AP's can use NTP?

The current code on the AP is 12.3(8)JA.

Thanks

Kevin

Rob Huffman · ‎10-14-2009

Hi Kevin,

The commands for this changed from NTP to SNTP somewhere in the 12.2.x releases, so "older" AP IOS's did support NTP. Here is some info for 12.3.(4)JA;

Managing the System Time and Date

You can manage the system time and date on the wireless device automatically, using the Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP), or manually, by setting the time and date on the wireless device.

Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) is a simplified, client-only version of NTP. SNTP can only receive the time from NTP servers; it cannot be used to provide time services to other systems. SNTP typically provides time within 100 milliseconds of the accurate time, but it does not provide the complex filtering and statistical mechanisms of NTP.

You can configure SNTP to request and accept packets from configured servers or to accept NTP broadcast packets from any source. When multiple sources are sending NTP packets, the server with the best stratum is selected.

If multiple servers are at the same stratum, a configured server is preferred over a broadcast server. If multiple servers pass both tests, the first one to send a time packet is selected. SNTP will only choose a new server if it stops receiving packets from the currently selected server, or if a better server (according to the above criteria) is discovered.

Configuring SNTP

SNTP is disabled by default. To enable SNTP on the access point, use one or both of these commands in global configuration mode:

sntp server {address | hostname}

[version number]

Configures SNTP to request NTP packets from an NTP server.

sntp broadcast client

Configures SNTP to accept NTP packets from any NTP broadcast server

Enter the sntp server command once for each NTP server. The NTP servers must be configured to respond to the SNTP messages from the access point.

If you enter both the sntp server command and the sntp broadcast client command, the access point will accept time from a broadcast server but prefers time from a configured server, assuming the strata are equal. To display information about SNTP, use the show sntp EXEC command.

Hope this helps!

Rob

Kevin Melton · ‎10-14-2009

Thanks Rob. This AP i do think then is configured correctly. It is refencing two Internet facing 2800 ISR's whom are effectively NTP servers to other Cisco devices on the network.

What is weird is that there are some time problems on the AP and I am not sure where to look if SNTP is configured correctly and working