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Quick NTP Question

Abdullah Net
Level 1
Level 1

Hello There,

 

Does a cisco router, when configured as NTP master, send NTP traffic as a broadcast or unicast?

 

Thanks,

 

Abdul,

 

 

1 Accepted Solution

Accepted Solutions

Tagir Temirgaliyev
Spotlight
Spotlight
to enable NTP broadcast do
 

Router1#configure terminal
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
Router1(config)#clock timezone EST -5
Router1(config)#clock summer-time EDT recurring
Router1(config)#ntp server 172.25.1.1
Router1(config)#ntp server 172.25.1.2
Router1(config)#interface FastEthernet0/0
Router1(config-if)#ntp broadcast
Router1(config-if)#end
Router1#

Discussion

Usually NTP associations are configured in a master/slave relationship ( unicast NTP ) , but the server (router) can also send periodic time updates using broadcast messages. This is useful on LAN segments that contain a large number of devices requiring NTP synchronization. Instead of responding to a large number of unicast NTP packets through a single interface, the router can simply send a single broadcast packet at a regular interval.

NTP devices configured to accept NTP broadcast messages can synchronize their internal clocks without ever sending a single NTP request packet. However, this simplicity comes at the cost of reduced timing accuracy, since the traffic is one-way only. The accuracy improves slightly by configuring an estimated broadcast delay on the client side, using the ntp broadcastdelay configuration command, as in the client configuration example above.

View solution in original post

1 Reply 1

Tagir Temirgaliyev
Spotlight
Spotlight
to enable NTP broadcast do
 

Router1#configure terminal
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
Router1(config)#clock timezone EST -5
Router1(config)#clock summer-time EDT recurring
Router1(config)#ntp server 172.25.1.1
Router1(config)#ntp server 172.25.1.2
Router1(config)#interface FastEthernet0/0
Router1(config-if)#ntp broadcast
Router1(config-if)#end
Router1#

Discussion

Usually NTP associations are configured in a master/slave relationship ( unicast NTP ) , but the server (router) can also send periodic time updates using broadcast messages. This is useful on LAN segments that contain a large number of devices requiring NTP synchronization. Instead of responding to a large number of unicast NTP packets through a single interface, the router can simply send a single broadcast packet at a regular interval.

NTP devices configured to accept NTP broadcast messages can synchronize their internal clocks without ever sending a single NTP request packet. However, this simplicity comes at the cost of reduced timing accuracy, since the traffic is one-way only. The accuracy improves slightly by configuring an estimated broadcast delay on the client side, using the ntp broadcastdelay configuration command, as in the client configuration example above.

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