Switch Time

[Orionesque]

I haven't finished building the network and am still finalising the network diagram so I don't have anything up and running in a way that I can test things.

I have only one 9200L switch in my network.

My questions and musings are all about trying to figure out time on the switch.

Q: This article:
https://www.lantronix.com/blog/whats-difference-console-port-management-port/
suggests management ports are in band. Is this true? Everywhere I've looked, MGMT is an out of band port?

Q: I'm trying to figure out whether I need an NTP server on my OOB network. The OOB network has on internet access so I'm considering getting a GPS NTP server. Presently I plan on connecting my management port to the OOB network switch. The information in the documentation tells you how to configure NTP i.e.

ntp server
ntp peer &
ntp broadcast

What I don't get is:
Where does the switch get its time from for SNMP and syslog and I guess everything else? Are the times on the MGMT port and front facing ports from the same source? Or how are they separated? Do the two networks see the same time?

It looks like the switch can act as an NTP server (at least you could in 17.9 but I can't find this as an option in 17.18). So if it can act as an NTP server then it can sync time on the OOB network?

[balaji.bandi · Accepted solution]

The switch has only one system clock. Every single feature on the switch—whether it is Syslog, SNMP, or local file timestamps—reads from this exact same central clock.

you can configured using central NTP server example :

ntp server vrf Mgmt-vrf <SER_NTP_IP>

Yes. Once the central system clock is updated

No, Cisco Catalyst 9200 switches cannot act as an NTP Server.

This is a hard platform limitation of Cisco IOS-XE on the Catalyst 9200/9200L series. While higher-end switches (like the Catalyst 9300 or 9500) support the ntp master command to act as a time server, the 9200 platform only supports functioning as an NTP Client.

[Orionesque]

Thanks Balaji, NTP server it is.