162
Options List
NTP Authentication
Authentication involves advanced configuration for NTP, and used to prevent tampering with the timestamps
on the logs generated by devices. You can configure a device to authenticate the time sources to which the
local clock is synchronized. When you enable NTP authentication, the device synchronizes to a time source
only if the source carries one of the authentication keys specified by the ntp trusted-key command. The
device drops any packets that fail the authentication check and prevents them from updating the local clock.
NTP authentication is disabled by default.
Option 34 Network Time Module
Status
Configure
NTP
PTP
SNMP
Clock
Network
System
Support
Logout
Authentication
Apply
Reset
M
Enable Authentication
M
M
M
M
Key Table
ID Format Key Trusted
Figure B.24: NTP Authentication Page
There are four authentication formats (S, N, A, M) with different rules for each of the keys. For example,
a type M format (MD5) allows the key to have up to 31 ASCII characters like a password. The key ID is an
integer and identifies the NTP server key. If authentication is enabled, the client will only synchronize with
the server if it is trusted. Therefore, you must select the “Trusted” check box on the authentication page.
