Offline NetApp - NTP Issues

mizzle — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 02:12:21 GMT

I inherited administration of an offline domain environment with a NetApp (OnTap 9.11) and no dedicated NTP appliance

Because the environment is offline, we have significant issues with time skew from the hardware. While we are looking for a better solution, at this stage we manage it by manually fixing the time roughly every month.

It appears that this also led the to the previous administrators giving up on using CIFS shares. The shares exist and there is evidence they tried to make it work. But ultimately the shares are empty and other arrangements through Windows VM's are currently employed...all of which are on old OS's and need to be updated.

I've been given the task of trying to fix things...and I really don't want to build new Windows servers and kick the can further down the road.

The immediate issue is the time skew/sync. I want to use the domain controller as the NTP server, at least this way, the time skew *should* be the same on all devices

The NetApp was already configured to use the DC as the NTP server, but it wasn't syncing. After a bit of a fight, using information from ONTAP 9 - time server rejected as unreliable - NetApp Knowledge Base. I did manage to get the NetApp to sync to the domain controller.

1 month later, go to fix the time skew.

Domain controller: Time skew as expected

NetApp: Time is still correct

I can only surmise that this means that the NetApp is not continuously syncing with the Domain Controller. It got the time once and then just did its own thing.

How can I force the NetApp to sync more often?

Re: Offline NetApp - NTP Issues

chamfer — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 06:56:01 GMT

Hi @mizzle,

It sounds like ONTAP is not synchronized with the Domain Controller, check out this guide to diagnose https://kb.netapp.com/on-prem/ontap/Ontap_OS/OS-KBs/How_to_configure_and_troubleshoot_NTP_in_ONTAP_9_using_CLI

The diag command "systemshell -node local "sudo ntpq -pn" " will show you the current sync status. NTP (the protocol) may be marking your domain controller as Stratum 16 and potentially as a "falseticker" (the second unlikely if you have a single NTP source).

Provide your output to <systemshell -node local "sudo ntpq -pn"> (sanitized of course)

* NTP will keep in sync when it is working, this is different to SNTP which is a sync on schedule arrangement.

Personally I would be looking to use a network device (firewall or switch) as your NTP server, even if its in free-run. Also there are so many cheap GPS clocked NTP servers (you can get one brand new for EUR 100 / $110 USD)....... they are not super accurate, but great for your use case.

topic Re: Offline NetApp - NTP Issues in Network and Storage Protocols

Offline NetApp - NTP Issues

Re: Offline NetApp - NTP Issues