How to configure NTPv4 on the WLC

In this post I will show how to configure NTPv4 on the Wireless LAN Controllers. As I mentioned in the last post “NTPv4 causes the WLC to fail to synchronize time“, “NTPv4 protocol is not supported in Cisco 2504 and 5508 Wireless Controllers”. So you need a WLC such as 3504/5520/8540 to do the following.

1. Configuring the switch

I have introduced the NTP Server configuration of the switch in “How to configure NTP Server with Cisco switch” before, In this post I have added some authentication configurations.

WS-C3650#sh run | sec ntp
ntp authentication-key 1 md5 01100F175804 7
ntp authenticate
ntp trusted-key 1
ntp source GigabitEthernet2/0/2
ntp master
WS-C3650#

2. Configuring the WLC

(WLC) >config time ntp version 4

Server and key configs will be lost. Are you sure you want to change version? (y/n) y

(WLC) >config time ntp server 1 10.106.32.22


(WLC) >config time ntp key-auth ?
               
add            Choose add to Enter a NTP authentication key.
delete         Choose del to delete the NTP authentication key.
               
(WLC) >config time ntp key-auth add 1 md5 ascii ?
               
<key>          Enter MD5 key, Maximum of 16 characters.
               
(WLC) >config time ntp key-auth add 1 md5 ascii cisco


(WLC) >
(WLC) >config time ntp auth enable 

Incorrect Usage! USE config time ntp auth enable <server-index> <key-index>

(WLC) >config time ntp auth enable 1 1
Authentication Enabled

(WLC) >

3. Verification

(WLC) >show time 


Time............................................. Sat Oct 19 08:24:24 2019

Timezone delta................................... 0:0
Timezone location................................ 

NTP Servers
    NTP Version..................................     4

    Index  NTP Key       NTP Server   NTP Key   Polling Intervals
           Index                         Type        Max     Min
   -----------------------------------------------------------
      1      1   10.106.32.22            MD5          10       6

 NTPQ status list of NTP associations

     assoc
     ind assid status  conf reach auth condition  last_event cnt   src_addr 
   ===============================================================================
      1 12982  f63a   yes   yes   ok   sys.peer    sys_peer  3  10.106.32.22



--More-- or (q)uit

(WLC) >
(WLC) >

4. References

NTP on Wireless LAN Controllers Configuration Example
Guidelines and Restrictions on NTP
NTP version evolution