White Paper ⏐ Issue: October 2006 ⏐ Integration of BX600 SB9 Switches in Cisco Networks | Page 35 / 47 |
4 Switch Management
4.1Logging 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
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
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
!
