This blog post is written by Shine KA and Sanjeev Singh from Dell iDRAC team.
It is no longer difficult to configure or sync iDRAC7 time with respect to server time or to NTP servers. There is no need to set complicated time zone and daylight offset setting on iDRAC now. In addition to iDRAC syncing time with server, iDRAC Firmware 1.30.30 release onwards user can configure iDRAC to sync time with NTP server as well. Also you can set time zone on iDRAC by selecting required time zone from a list of 500+ time zones. Based on time zone selected and current iDRAC date, daylight offset will be applied automatically if applicable. Both NTP and Time zone can be configured using Web GUI, Racadm or WSMAN interface. iDRAC should have minimum of Express License to use NTP and Time zone feature.
One of the main challenge users have on iDRAC was to sync/set the time of iDRAC. In Dell 12G servers, iDRAC can get time from system Real Time Clock (RTC) through the chipset even when the server is powered off. After iDRAC gets time from RTC, user has to set time zone using racadm and if daylight offset is applicable for the selected time zone, user needs to set daylight offset object also using racadm. This offset needs to change whenever daylight offset change occurs. Because of this complexity, users have difficult time in configuring iDRAC for SSO, Smart Card, AD, LDAP and uploading newly created certificates.
With iDRAC 1.30.30 release onwards user can configure NTP/Time Zone on iDRAC in two ways
Only set time zone.
In this method, iDRAC will automatically have it’s time synced with server. And users only need to configure time zone on iDRAC without having to configure the daylight offset through racadm. You can configure time zone from "iDRAC Settings -> iDRAC Settings" Page of iDRAC Web Interface. From racadm you can use idrac.time group to configure various time zones.
Set Both NTP and Time zone
In this method user will configure NTP and Time zone. In this case iDRAC will sync the time with NTP server and selected Time zone will be also applied. iDRAC will sync NTP server’s UTC/GMT time, so it is important that you configure correct time zone while configuring NTP on iDRAC. You can configure up to three NTP servers. It is always recommended to configure all three NTP servers for accuracy. We support IPv4, IPv6 and FQDN format for configuring NTP server address When NTP mode is enabled and iDRAC has received time through this interface, iDRAC will ignore any attempts to set iDRAC time through the server (BIOS, Open Manage, etc.) or CMC (for blade servers).
Additional Information:
iDRAC7 1.30.30 Firmware can be downloaded from here