IT Solutions Blog | Trigon Technology

IT Support: A Beginners Guide to NTP

I am employed with a company that specializes in IT support, and after the daylight savings time updates that were enacted a while back, I decided to share my experience with NTP and network devices. The recent change to DST prompted a quick audit of NTP settings and time on the network devices that I manage. I work mostly on Cisco equipment, so that is the types of hints I will share with everyone today. I am sure that other equipment is similar in settings if the commands are different.

First, I should go over the importance of NTP when it comes to network equipment and security for an IT solutions company. Most Cisco equipment does not include a battery to keep the internal clock running when the power is reset. So power outages, IOS upgrades, and scheduled maintenance that requires a reboot of the device will reset the clock. Second, if you are logging anything for either audit trails, security breaches, or penetration attempts, the logs are almost no help in establishing a timeline if the clock isn't accurate.

Now what is NTP? It's an acronym, for starters, that stands for network time protocol. For some interesting reading, hit it up on Wikipedia sometime. For the needs of this article, it is a way to update time on a device across the internet. Windows uses this to keep the time up to date on all their OS, and all workstations get their time from the domain controller responsible for getting the time from the internet. Now, as I asked before, what does this have to do with keeping good time on network devices? We can point our network devices to a public time server, and after every reboot, a fresh update is gathered and like magic time is up to date.

Ok enough with this babble, how do you know if a server is set and working on a Cisco switch, for instance, you may ask. Easy, with a couple commands I will share with you, you can quickly login to your devices and check if everything is working fine. The first new command in your arsenal is just the good old show clock. This is a quick easy way to see if the clock is even close to being correct. If it is not even close, the next thing you should take a look at is one of these two commands: show ntp associations, or show ntp status. These are your go to commands, and remember the ‘?' is your friend. Now if everything is looking good, you have nothing to worry about, but if you don't have a server set at all, never fear, I am going to cover just a few of the important configuration commands you need to get everything working.

The first thing I want to mention is you will need to enter configuration mode to make changes to the NTP configuration. I suggest you look up a public NTP server and a backup you plan to use and write them down. You will need that information to make the configuration. Get their IP address, if you have a DNS name this will help for the configuration. Now, to set the server you just need ntp server x.x.x.x . Nothing to it at all, and that will get a server configured and your time set in a short amount of time.

Next, if you are in an area that participates in DST, you need to configure that setting and at this point you should configure your time zone. The last two commands you need are clock summer-time EST recurring, this configures the clock for EST and that it happens every year, and then clock timezone EST -5. Both of those commands are to be run from configuration mode, and you should have perfect time in no time. Just verify that your clock is now up to date with a quick show clock and just feel better knowing that your timestamps and logging are in good shape.

Simple IT Solutions: Sharing Folders on Business Networks

At Trigon, we deal specifically with small and midsized organizations.  And we like to provide our clients with peace of mind when it comes to technology.  Essentially, through our IT Services, it's our goal to allow people to use their technology for the benefit of their business, and to have it integrate seamlessly into their business plans and objectives.    

Often times, our clients find it necessary to have a certain number of PCs running on different versions of Microsoft Windows.  While this in itself isn't a problem, it seems that sharing folders and files on a network through this setup can be somewhat difficult. 

That's why we thought it was important to point out to you that Cisco offers a product called Network Magic that can make things a heck of a lot more convenient for you.  Network Magic is a tool that allows you to share files and folders, and also looks for security holes in your network.  So, for around $30, you can secure your network and make sharing files and folders across a network easy. 

As for how it works, it's quite simple...  Once you install Network Magic on each PC..Voila!!  You can share files and folders with just three simple clicks.  The product comes in two editions; a $30 edition, Essentials, which offers licenses for up to 3 PCs.  And also a $40 version, Pro, which offers licenses for up to 8! 

So if you're having trouble setting up a network at your small or midsized business, be sure to check out Network Magic.  And don't worry, your local IT Support Company can assist you in getting it up and running properly.