000034324 - How to automate NTP synchronization using crontab in RSA Authentication Manager

Document created by RSA Customer Support Employee on Nov 30, 2016•Last modified by RSA Customer Support Employee on Apr 21, 2017
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Article Number000034324
Applies ToRSA Product Set: SecurID
RSA Product/Service Type: Authentication Manager
RSA Version/Condition: 7.1,  8.x
Platform: Linux
IssueRSA Authentication Manager is losing connection to the NTP server for several reasons, such as UDP packet loss.
Resolution
  1. Connect to the server using SSH or direct connection.
  2. Login to the server.
  • For Authentication Manager 8.x, login as rsaadmin.  
  • For Authentication Manager 7.1, use the login credentials defined during Quick Setup/
  • For the RSA SecurID Appliance 3.0 use emcsrv then sudo to rsaadmin.
  1. Change to the root user,
  2. Run the command crontab -e:
login as: rsaadmin
Using keyboard-interactive authentication.
Password: <enter operating system password>
Last login: Wed Nov 30 20:15:31 2016 from jumphost.vcloud.local
RSA Authentication Manager Installation Directory: /opt/rsa/am
rsaadmin@am81p:~> crontab -e

  1.  Add the following line in the crontab file, then press Esc and :wq! to save and exit, note that this file uses vi editing options.
* * * * * /usr/sbin/sntp -P no -r XXXXXX


where,
XXXXXX is the FQDN or IP address of the NTP source.  For example,

    * * * * * /usr/sbin/sntp -P no -r time-a.nist.gov

    Notes
    • NTP  sync will occur every minute after applying the solution in the example mentioned, and it has no impact on the server performance.
    • If you want to setup a different sync interval , you can use the crontab syntax which has five fields for specifying day, date and time followed by the command to be run at that interval.
      *     *     *   *    *        command to be executed
      -     -     -   -    -
      |     |     |   |    |
      |     |     |   |    +----- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0)
      |     |     |   +------- month (1 - 12)
      |     |     +--------- day of        month (1 - 31)
      |     +----------- hour (0 - 23)
      +------------- min (0 - 59)

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