System Time

Setting Time

To manually set the system-time on your Oracle Communications Session Border Controller:

In the ACLI at the superuser prompt, enter the systime-set command and press Enter. Enter the Date and Time in the exact format shown on the screen. Remember to use 24-hour time when entering the time. You will be given a chance to confirm your change. Type Y followed by <enter> to confirm.
```
ORACLE# systime-set
Date YYYY MM DD: 2005 01 26
Time HH MM: 16 05
WARNING: Changing the time can have an adverse
         effect on session processing
Do you want to continue [y/n]?: y
Setting time to: WED JAN 26 16:05:00 2000
ORACLE#
```

Setting Timezone

The timezone on the Acme Packet ESD must be set manually via the ACLI using one of two methods:

using the timezone-set command at the root prompt. This commands starts a timezone wizard that allows you to answer prompts specifically related to timezone settings. You can set your timezone location and the wizard automatically sets the daylight savings time for the location you select.
at the path system, timezone. This parameter allows you to create a timezone name and apply specific instructions for daylight savings time (DST) and specify the number of minutes from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). If you initiated the timezone-set wizard previous to accessing this parameter, the settings for system, timezone are already populated. You can change them if required.

It is recommended you set the timezone after first boot of the system.

About UTC Timezones

Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is used as the official world reference for time. Coordinated Universal Time replaced the use of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) in 1972. Sometimes time zones are represented similar to UTC - 5h or GMT - 5h. In this example, the (-5h) refers to that time zone being five hours behind UTC or GMT and so forth for the other time zones. UTC +5h or GMT +5h would refer to that time zone being five hours ahead of UTC of GMT and so forth for the other time zones.

The usage of UTC and GMT is based upon a twenty four hour clock, similar to military time, and is based upon the 0° longitude meridian, referred to as the Greenwich meridian in Greenwich, England.

UTC is based on cesium-beam atomic clocks, with leap seconds added to match earth-motion time, where as Greenwich Mean Time is based upon the Earth's rotation and celestial measurements. UTC is also known as Zulu Time or Z time.

In areas of the United States that observe Daylight Saving Time, local residents move their clocks ahead one hour when Daylight Saving Time begins. As a result, their UTC or GMT offset would change from UTC -5h or GMT - 5h to UTC -4h or GMT - 4h. In places not observing Daylight Saving Time the local UTC or GMT offset will remain the same year round. Arizona, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa do not observe Daylight Saving Time.

In the United States Daylight Saving Time begins at 2:00 a.m. local time on the second Sunday in March. On the first Sunday in November areas on Daylight Saving Time return to Standard Time at 2:00 a.m. The names in each time zone change along with Daylight Saving Time. Eastern Standard Time (EST) becomes Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), and so forth. A new federal law took effect in March 2007 which extends Daylight Saving Time by four weeks.

The United States uses nine standard time zones. From east to west they are Atlantic Standard Time (AST), Eastern Standard Time (EST), Central Standard Time (CST), Mountain Standard Time (MST), Pacific Standard Time (PST), Alaskan Standard Time (AKST), Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time (HST), Samoa standard time (UTC-11) and Chamorro Standard Time (UTC+10).

The following tables identify the standard time zone boundaries and the offsets.

Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)	Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
UTC/GMT +0	UTC/GMT +0

The following table identifies the United States GMT/UTC offsets.

Time Zone in United States	Examples of Places in the United States in These Time Zones	UTC Offset Standard Time	UTC Offset Daylight Saving Time
Atlantic	Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands	UTC - 4h	N/A
Eastern	Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, part of Indiana, part of Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, part of Tennessee, Vermont Virginia, and West Virginia	UTC - 5h	UTC - 4h
Central	Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, part of Indiana, Iowa, part of Kansas, part of Kentucky, Louisiana, part of Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, part of South Dakota, part of Tennessee, most of Texas, and Wisconsin	UTC - 6h	UTC - 5h
Mountain	Arizona*, Colorado, part of Idaho, part of Kansas, Montana, part of Nebraska, New Mexico, part of North Dakota, part of Oregon, part of South Dakota, part of Texas, Utah, and Wyoming	UTC - 7h	UTC - 6h *n/a for Arizona
Pacific	California, part of Idaho, Nevada, most of Oregon, Washington	UTC - 8h	UTC - 7h
Alaska	Alaska and a portion of the Aleutian Islands that is east of 169 degrees 30 minutes west longitude observes the Alaska Time Zone	UTC - 9h	UTC - 8h
Hawaii-Aleutian	Hawaii and a portion of the Aleutian Islands that is west of 169 degrees 30 minutes west longitude observes the Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time Zone. ALthough Hawaii does not observe daylight savings time, the Aleutian Islands do observe daylight saving time.	UTC - 10h	UTC - 9h Hawaii does not observe daylight saving time

Using the Timezone-Set Wizard

You can configure the timezone on the Acme Packet ESD by running a timezone-set wizard from the root location via the ACLI. Use the following procedure to configure the Acme Packet ESD timezone. If you need to exit the timezone-set command before completing it, use the key sequence Ctrl-D.

Note:

The procedure described below may display different prompts depending on whether your system is running on VXWorks or LINUX.

To configure the timezone:

At the root prompt, enter timezone-set and press Enter.

ORACLE# timezone-set

The following displays.

==========================================

Calling tzselect. Use ^D to cancel without save
Please identify a location so that time zone rules can be set correctly.
Please select a continent or ocean.
1) Africa
2) Americas
3) Antarctica
4) Asia
5) Atlantic Ocean
6) Australia
7) Europe
8) Indian Ocean
9) Pacific Ocean
10) coord - I want to use geographical coordinates.
11) TZ - I want to specify the time zone using the Posix TZ format.
#?

==========================================

Enter the number corresponding to the continent or ocean you want to select, and press Enter. Or enter none to specify the time zone using the Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) timezone format.

Note:

For a procedure to configure timezones using POSIX format, see Configuring Timezone using POSIX Format.

#? 2

The following displays.

==========================================

Please select a country.
1) Anguilla
2) Antigua & Barbuda
3) Argentina
4) Aruba
5) Bahamas
6) Barbados
7) Belize
8) Bolivia
9) Bonaire Sint Eustatius & Saba
10) Brazil
11) Canada
12) Cayman Islands
13) Chile
14) Colombia
15) Costa Rica
16) Cuba
17) Curacao
18) Dominica
19) Dominican Republic
20) Ecuador
21) El Salvador
22) French Guiana
23) Greenland
24) Grenada
25) Guadeloupe
26) Guatemala
27) Guyana
28) Haiti
29) Honduras
30) Jamaica
31) Martinique
32) Mexico
33) Montserrat
34) Nicaragua
35) Panama
36) Paraguay
37) Peru
38) Puerto Rico
39) Sint Maarten
40) St Barthelemy
41) St Kitts & Nevis
42) St Lucia
43) St Martin (French part)
44) St Pierre & Miquelon
45) St Vincent
46) Suriname
47) Trinidad & Tobago
48) Turks & Caicos Is
49) United States
50) Uruguay
51) Venezuela
52) Virgin Islands (UK)
53) Virgin Islands (US)
#?

==========================================

Enter the number corresponding to the country you want to select, and press Enter.

#? 49

The following displays.

==========================================

Please select one of the following time zone regions.
1) Eastern Time
2) Eastern Time - Michigan - most locations
3) Eastern Time - Kentucky - Louisville area
4) Eastern Time - Kentucky - Wayne County
5) Eastern Time - Indiana - most locations
6) Eastern Time - Indiana - Daviess, Dubois, Knox & Martin Counties
7) Eastern Time - Indiana - Pulaski County
8) Eastern Time - Indiana - Crawford County
9) Eastern Time - Indiana - Pike County
10) Eastern Time - Indiana - Switzerland County
11) Central Time
12) Central Time - Indiana - Perry County
13) Central Time - Indiana - Starke County
14) Central Time - Michigan - Dickinson, Gogebic, Iron & Menominee Counties
15) Central Time - North Dakota - Oliver County
16) Central Time - North Dakota - Morton County (except Mandan area)
17) Central Time - North Dakota - Mercer County
18) Mountain Time
19) Mountain Time - south Idaho & east Oregon
20) Mountain Time - Navajo
21) Mountain Standard Time - Arizona
22) Pacific Time
23) Alaska Time
24) Alaska Time - Alaska panhandle
25) Alaska Time - southeast Alaska panhandle
26) Alaska Time - Alaska panhandle neck
27) Alaska Time - west Alaska
28) Aleutian Islands
29) Metlakatla Time - Annette Island
30) Hawaii
#?

==========================================

Enter the number corresponding to the time zone region you want to select, and press Enter.

#? 1

The following displays.

==========================================

The following information has been given:
        United States
        Eastern Time
Therefore TZ='America/New_York' will be used.
Local time is now:      Wed Mar 13 11:18:52 EDT 2013.
Universal Time is now:  Wed Mar 13 15:18:52 UTC 2013.
Is the above information OK?
1) Yes
2) No
#?

==========================================

Enter 1 (Yes), and press Enter. Or enter 2 (No) to go back to Step 2 and enter the correct timezone information.
```
#? 1
```
The following displays.

==========================================
```
Timezone=America/New_York
ORACLE#
```
==========================================

You have completed the timezone-set wizard.

Configure Timezone using the COORD Format

If you want to configure the timezone using the COORD format, you can select the option 10 - coord - I want to use geographical coordinates in Step 2 of the timezone-set wizard. If you need to exit the timezone-set command before completing it, use the key sequence Ctrl-D.

To set the timezone using the COORD format:

At the root prompt, enter timezone-set and press Enter.

ORACLE# timezone-set

The following displays.

Calling tzselect. Use ^D to cancel without save
Please identify a location so that time zone rules can be set correctly.
Please select a continent or ocean.
1) Africa
2) Americas
3) Antarctica
4) Asia
5) Atlantic Ocean
6) Australia
7) Europe
8) Indian Ocean
9) Pacific Ocean
10) coord - I want to use geographical coordinates.
11) TZ - I want to specify the time zone using the Posix TZ format.
#?

Enter 10, and press Enter.

#? 10

The following displays

Please enter coordinates in ISO 6709 notation. 
For example, +4042-07403 stands for 
40 degrees 42 minutes north, 74 degrees 3 minutes west.

Enter the value.

3032-07403

The following displays

Please select one of the following timezones, echo listed roughly in
    increasing order of distance from 3032-07403.  
1) US - Eastern (most areas)  
2) Turks & Caicos Is  
3) Haiti  
4) Jamaica  
5) Bermuda  
6) Dominican Republic  
7) Cuba  
8) Canada, Bahamas - Eastern - ON & QC (most areas)  
9) US - Eastern - KY (Wayne) 
10) US - Eastern - MI (most areas)

Select your option.

#? 10

The following displays.

The following information has been given:
        coord 3032-07403
        US - Eastern - MI (most areas)
Therefore TZ='America/Detroit' will be used. 
Selected time is now:   Thu Oct 24 13:18:33 EDT 2024. 
Universal Time is now:  Thu Oct 24 17:18:33 UTC 2024. 
Is the above information OK? 
1) Yes 
2) No

Enter 1 (Yes), and press Enter. Or enter 2 (No) to go back to Step 2 and enter the correct timezone information.
```
#? 1
```
The following displays. If you specified a value that does not relate to your Acme Packet ESD location, a warning displays.
```
Timezone=UTC-10 WARNING: custom timezone will apply
to application only.

ORACLE#
```

Configuring Timezone using POSIX Format

If you want to configure the timezone using POSIX format, you can select the option none - I want to specify the time zone using the Posix TZ format in Step 2 of the timezone-set wizard. If you need to exit the timezone-set command before completing it, use the key sequence Ctrl-D.

To set the timezone using POSIX format:

At the root prompt, enter timezone-set and press Enter.

ORACLE# timezone-set

The following displays.

==========================================

Calling tzselect. Use ^D to cancel without save
Please identify a location so that time zone rules can be set correctly.
Please select a continent or ocean.
1) Africa
2) Americas
3) Antarctica
4) Arctic Ocean
5) Asia
6) Atlantic Ocean
7) Australia
8) Europe
9) Indian Ocean
10) Pacific Ocean
11) none - I want to specify the time zone using the Posix TZ format.
#?

==========================================

Enter 11, and press Enter.

#? 11

The following displays.

==========================================

Please enter the desired value of the TZ environment variable.
For example, GST-10 is a zone named GST that is 10 hours ahead (east) of UTC.

==========================================

Enter the UTC/GMT value for your location. For valid UTC/GMT values, see the Timezone Offsets Table.

#? UTC-10

The following displays.

==========================================

The following information has been given:
        TZ='UTC-10'
Therefore TZ='UTC-10' will be used.
Local time is now:      Thu Apr 11 02:50:18 UTC 2013.
Universal Time is now:  Wed Apr 10 16:50:18 UTC 2013.
Is the above information OK?
1) Yes
2) No
#?

==========================================

Enter 1 (Yes), and press Enter. Or enter 2 (No) to go back to Step 2 and enter the correct timezone information.
```
#? 1
```
The following displays. If you specified a value that does not relate to your Acme Packet ESD location, a warning displays.

==========================================
```
Timezone=UTC-10
WARNING: custom timezone will apply to application only.
ORACLE#
```
==========================================

You have completed the timezone-set wizard.

Displaying the System Timezone

You can display the timezone configured for your Oracle Communications Session Border Controller using the ACLI show timezone command from the root prompt.

ORACLE# show timezone
America/New_York
ORACLE#

To show more specific information about timezone settings, such as daylight savings time, navigate to the timezone parameter at the path system, timezone, and initiate the show command. The following example shows the results from the show command.

ORACLE(timezone)# show
timezone
        name 	TimezoneA
        minutes-from-utc 	240
        dst-start-month                         1
        dst-start-day                           1
        dst-start-weekday                       sunday
        dst-start-hour                          1
        dst-start-rule                          disabled
        dst-end-month                           1
        dst-end-day                             1
        dst-end-weekday                         sunday
        dst-end-hour                            1
        dst-end-rule                            disabled

NTP Synchronization

This section provides information about how to set and monitor NTP on your Oracle Communications Session Border Controller.

When an NTP server is unreachable or when NTP service goes down, the Oracle Communications Session Border Controller generates traps for those conditions. Likewise, the Oracle Communications Session Border Controller clears those traps when the conditions have been rectified. The Oracle Communications Session Border Controller considers a configured NTP server to be unreachable when its reach number (whether or not the NTP server could be reached at the last polling interval; successful completion augments the number) is 0. You can see this value for a server when you use the ACLI show ntp server command.

The traps for when a server is unreachable and then again reachable are: apSysMgmtNTPServerUnreachableTrap and apSysMgmtNTPServerUnreachableClearTrap
The traps for when NTP service goes down and then again returns are: apSysMgmtNTPServiceDownTrap and apSysMgmtNTPServiceDownClearTrap

Note:

The Oracle Communications Session Border Controller does not support NTP service over wancom0 when that interface is configured for a VLAN.

Setting NTP Synchronization

When the SBC requires time-critical processing, you can set NTP for time synchronization. Setting NTP synchronizes both the hardware and the software clocks with the reference time from an NTP server that you specify. NTP is most useful for synchronizing multiple devices located on one network, or across many networks, to a reference time standard.

To guard against NTP server failure, NTP is restarted periodically to support the dynamic recovery of an NTP server.

Note that ntp-sync works only by way of the management interface and only on wancom0. Do not configure ntp-sync by way of the media interface or any other port.

To set NTP synchronization:

In the ACLI’s configure terminal section, type ntp-sync and then press Enter to access the NTP configuration.
```
ORACLE# configure terminal
ORACLE(configure)# ntp-sync
ORACLE(ntp-config)#
```
To add an NTP server, type add-server, the Space bar, then the FQDN, IPv4, or IPv6 address of the server and then press the Enter key.
For FQDN configuration, see FQDNs for Time Servers on the SBC below.

For example, this entry adds the NTP server at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA:
```
ORACLE(ntp-config)# add-server 18.26.4.105
```
To delete an NTP server, type delete-server, the Space bar, and the IPv4 or IPv6 address of the server you want to delete and then press the Enter key.
```
ORACLE(ntp-config)# del-server 18.26.4.105
```

Authenticated NTP

The Oracle Communications Session Border Controller can authenticate NTP server requests using MD5. The configured MD5 keys are encrypted and obscured in the ACLI. You configure an authenticated NTP server with its IP address, authentication key, and the key ID. Corresponding key and key IDs are provided by the NTP server administrator.

To configure an authenticated NTP server:

Access the ntp-config configuration element.

ORACLE# configure terminal
ORACLE(configure)# ntp-sync
ACMEPACKET(ntp-config)#

Type select.
```
ORACLE(ntp-config)# select
```

Access the auth-servers configuration element

ORACLE(ntp-config)# auth-servers
ORACLE(auth-servers)#

ip-address — Enter the IPv4 or IPv6 address of the NTP server that supports authentication.
key-id — Enter the key ID of the key you enter in the next step. This value’s range is 1 - 999999999.
key — Enter the key used to secure the NTP requests. The key is a string 1 - 31 characters in length.
Type done to save your work.
Type exit to return to the previous configuration level.
Type done to save the parent configuration element.

Monitoring NTP from the ACLI

NTP server information that you can view with the show ntp server command tell you about the quality of the time being used in terms of offset and delays measurements. You can also see the maximum error bounds.

When you use this command, information for all configured servers is displayed. Data appears in columns that are defined in the table below:

Display Column	Definition
server	Lists the NTP servers configured on the Oracle Communications Session Border Controller by IP address. Entries are accompanied by characters: Plus sign (+)—Symmetric active server Dash (-)—Symmetric passive server Equal sign (=)—Remote server being polled in client mode Caret (^)—Server is broadcasting to this address Tilde (~)—Remote peer is sending broadcast to * Asterisk (*)—The peer to which the server is synchronizing
st	Stratum level—Calculated from the number of computers in the NTP hierarchy to the time reference. The time reference has a fixed value of 0, and all subsequent computers in the hierarchy are n+1.
poll	Maximum interval between successive polling messages sent to the remote host, measured in seconds.
reach	Measurement of successful queries to this server; the value is an 8-bit shift register. A new server starts at 0, and its reach augments for every successful query by shifting one in from the right: 0, 1, 3, 7, 17, 37, 77, 177, 377. A value of 377 means that there have been eight successful queries.
delay	Amount of time a reply packet takes to return to the server (in milliseconds) in response.
offset	Time difference (in milliseconds) between the client’s clock and the server’s.
disp	Difference between two offset samples; error-bound estimate for measuring service quality.

View Statistics

To view statistics for NTP servers:

At the command line, type show ntp server and press Enter.

ORACLE# show ntp server
NTP Status                                    FRI APR 11:09:50 UTC 2007
 server                 st  poll  reach   delay    offset     disp
----------------------- --  ----  ------  -------  --------   ---------
*64.46.24.66             3    64     377  0.00018  0.000329   0.00255
=61.26.45.88             3    64     377  0.00017  0.002122   0.00342

You can the see the status of NTP on your system by using the show ntp status command. Depending on the status of NTP on your system, one of the following messages will appear:

NTP not configured
NTP Daemon synchronized to server at [the IP address of the specific server]
NTP synchronization in process
NTP down, all configured servers are unreachable

View Status

To view the status of NTP on your Oracle Communications Session Border Controller:

At the command line, type show ntp status and press Enter.
```
ORACLE# show ntp status
```

Automated Daylight Savings Time (DST) Updates

In addition to configuring DST at the command prompt, the Oracle Communications Session Border Controller provides a mechanism to create static or rules-based time updates to reflect your location’s seasonal Daylight Savings Time changes. This configuration offsets the Oracle Communications Session Border Controller ’s internal time, obtained via NTP or from ACLI configuration. When DST is configured as a configuration element, it is persistent across reboots.

When the DST start date/time is reached, 1 hour is added to the system clock. When the DST end date/time is reached, 1 hour is subtracted from the system clock.

Baseline Configuration

To complete automated DST configuration, you must give a name to the time zone that this system adheres to and the minutes from UTC (offset) from UTC, entered as +/-720.

Static DST Updates

You can configure the Oracle Communications Session Border Controller to enact and rescind DST offset on a predefined start and stop date. This is set with the following parameters:

dst start/end rule — This parameter is set to static when configuring static DST start and end times.

dst start/end month — The month when DST offset begins or ends, entered as 1-12.

dst start/end day — The day of the month when DST offset begins or ends, entered as 1-31.

dst start/end hour — The hour on the chosen day when DST offset starts or ends, entered as 0-23.

Rules-based DST Updates

You can configure the Oracle Communications Session Border Controller to enact and rescind DST offset based on rules that correspond to relative dates in a month. That is, start and stop dates can be the Nth (or last) day-name, in a calendar month, as opposed to a day-number of the month.

dst start/end rule — This parameter is set to ordinal number of the start/stop weekday when configuring rules-based DST start and end times. This parameter is entered as: first | second | third | fourth | last.

dst start/end month — The month when DST offset begins or ends, entered as 1-12.

dst start/end hour — The hour on the chosen day when DST offset starts or ends, entered as 0-23.

dst start/end day is not configured when entering rules based DST updates.

DST Update Examples

The current DST rule for North America is that daylight savings starts on the second Sunday in March at 2:00am and ends on the first Sunday in November at 2:00am. Thus the settings for the Eastern Time Zone would be as follows:

name				=  EST
minutes-from-utc	=  300
dst-start-month   	=  3
dst-start-day     	=  1
dst-start-weekday   =  sunday
dst-start-hour   	=  2
dst-start-rule 	=  second
dst-end-month   	=  11
dst-end-day     	=  1
dst-end-weekday   	=  sunday
dst-end-hour   	=  2
dst-end-rule 		=  first

Note:

The dst-start-day and dst-end-day values are ignored.

The European Union directive states that DST starts on the last Sunday in March at 1:00am UTC and ends on the last Sunday in October at 1:00am UTC. Therefore the timezone settings for the UK would be:

name				=  GMT
minutes-from-utc	=  0
dst-start-month   	=  3
dst-start-day     	=  1
dst-start-weekday   =  sunday
dst-start-hour   	=  1
dst-start-rule 	=  last
dst-end-month   	=  10
dst-end-day     	=  1
dst-end-weekday   	=  sunday
dst-end-hour   	=  2
dst-end-rule 		=  last

Note the dst-end-hour is 2 because this is the local time and 2am BST is 1am UTC.