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White Paper Issue: October 2006 Integration of BX600 SB9 Switches in Cisco Networks Page 35 / 47
4 Switch Management
4.1 Logging and Synchronization
4.1.1 Introduction
When there are problems in a network it is vital to log the events at all network devices. Since a data center network often
consists of many network devices, a central logging server is used to collect the information from all components.
Logging information is usually sent using the protocol syslog (RFC 3164), which is supported both by SB9 and Cisco switches.
The server may be an UNIX system, in which a syslog daemon is usually distributed with the operating system, or a Windows
system with a special syslog server installed.
A syslog message includes a time stamp to enable administrators to correlate events, and it is therefore necessary to
synchronize the time bases used by all the devices.
The standards for this task are NTP and SNTP. NTP (Network Time Protocol) is a mechanism that ensures reliable
synchronization between devices over IP networks, even where there is a high delay on the lines, such as when the
synchronization is running over WAN links. When running in a LAN environment you can use a less complex protocol (SNTP,
standing for simple NTP), which is compatible to NTP and can use a NTP server as time source.
4.1.2 Recommended Solution
Since syslog is an unreliable protocol, we recommend that you also enable logging to memory at the SB9. The synchronization
should be performed by configuring two NTP servers or using a NTP broadcast source, as specified in whichever standard is in
use at the data center.
4.1.3 Configuration of syslog and SNTP
The following steps are necessary to enable logging and SNTP
• Step 1a: Configure the SB9 for unicast SNTP
• Step 1b: Alternatively configure the SB9 for broadcast SNTP
• Step 2: Configure the SB9 for logging and syslog
• Step 3: Test the configuration
Step 1a: Configure the SB9 for unicast SNTP
! SB9 unicast SNTP configuration
!
! Enable the SNTP client
sntp client mode unicast
!
! Configure the NTP server
sntp server 10.222.0.1 ipv4
sntp server 10.222.0.2 ipv4
! Configure the time zone
sntp clock timezone MEST 2 0 before-utc
Step 1b: Configure the SB9 for broadcast SNTP
! SB9 broadcast SNTP configuration
!
! Enable the SNTP client in broadcast mode
sntp client mode broadcast
!
! Configure the time zone
sntp clock timezone MEST 2 0 before-utc
Step 2: Configure the SB9 for logging and syslog
! SB9 logging configuration
!
! Enable logging into memory
logging buffered
!
! Wrap the logging buffer when capacity is reached
logging buffered wrapped
!
! Enable syslog
logging syslog
!
! Send syslog messages to 10.222.0.21 port 514 (default)
! Include all messages upto debug severity
logging host 10.222.0.21 514 debug
!