Setting NTP, date, time and time zone information for Authentication Manager 8.x running on SLES 15
a year ago
Originally Published: 2025-04-30
Article Number
000073359
Applies To

RSA Product Set:  SecurID
RSA Product/Service Type:  Authentication Manager
RSA Version/Condition:  8.7 and higher

Issue

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 15 no longer uses ntp.conf. Use timedatectl to turn NTP on and off and manually set the time. 

Resolution

Keeping the correct time for all servers across an environment aids in accuracy, authentication, and troubleshooting. This article on setting date, time and timezone on a Linux server provides information about the basic commands of the timedatectl utility.

SSH to the Authentication Manager primary and sudo to root.

To turn NTP on or off, run:

am87-1:/home/rsaadmin # timedatectl set-ntp true | false

For example:

am87-1:/home/rsaadmin # timedatectl set-ntp false

  • Run timedatectl to show that the NTP service is now inactive:

am87-1:/home/rsaadmin # timedatectl
Local time: Wed 2025-04-30 13:07:55 UTC
Universal time: Wed 2025-04-30 13:07:55 UTC
RTC time: Wed 2025-04-30 13:07:55
Time zone: UTC (UTC, +0000)
System clock synchronized: yes
NTP service: inactive
RTC in local TZ: no

  • To turn NTP back on, run

am87-1:/home/rsaadmin # timedatectl set-ntp true

  • Run timedatectl to show that the NTP service is now active:

am87-1:/home/rsaadmin # timedatectl
Local time: Wed 2025-04-30 13:07:55 UTC
Universal time: Wed 2025-04-30 13:07:55 UTC
RTC time: Wed 2025-04-30 13:07:55
Time zone: UTC (UTC, +0000)
System clock synchronized: yes
NTP service: active
RTC in local TZ: no

To set system date

  • Use date format of <YYYY-MM-DD>:

am87-1:/home/rsaadmin # timedatectl set-time 2025-01-25 

  • Run timedatectl to show that the local time matches what was set above

To set system time

  • Use time format of <hh:mm:ss>:

am87-1:/home/rsaadmin # timedatectl set-time 13:08:30

  • Run timedatectl to show that the local time matches what was set above

To set system time zone

  • am87-1:/home/rsaadmin # timedatectl set-timezone <timezone> 

am87-1:/home/rsaadmin # timedatectl set-timezone America/Boston (EDT, -0400) 

  • Run timedatectl to show that the time zone matches what was set above
Notes