Domain Time II Configuration - Client/SNMP Traps

SNMP Traps

Domain Time II Client
Version 5.2

Domain Time II Client can send notifications of its status to Network Management Systems and other SNMP-capable monitoring devices using SNMP Traps.

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Important: SNMP support depends upon wsnmp32.dll being present in the OS. All Windows versions except the initial release of Windows Server 2016 Nano Server have this installed by default. To install Domain Time on Nano Server, you must install the SNMP trap support .dll before installing Domain Time. See the Nano Server FAQ for more information.

Use this section to enable SNMP Traps. Enter the SNMP community name and password used by your Network Management System (NMS), as well as its DNS name or IP address. Your community name and password must match the one in use by the receiving system.

As of v5.2.b.20190331, you may also specify a port number to which SNMP traps are sent in the Server field. Examples:

snmp.mydomain.com:1214

[2002:410:1:1:2a0:69ff:fe01:b0f4]:2444.

Best Practices for SNMP include using a unique community name and hard-to-guess password on production systems. The default community public should only be used for initial testing. Although Domain Time only sends outgoing trap information and is therefore not susceptible to SNMP remote control vulnerabilities, you should still be mindful of SNMP security for the benefit of your other SNMP devices.

The settings in this section select which SNMP traps are sent by Domain Time.

Although useful for raising performance alarms or other monitoring functions, you should not depend upon the SNMP trap data for critical logging of time synchronization events, particularly if your logging is necessary for regulatory compliance. Use a product designed for more robust data collection, such as Domain Time Audit Server instead.

If variance exceeds milliseconds

Warning:
Domain Time may generate a large number of timechecks (depending on your Timings settings) so it is very easy to swamp your monitoring system with alerts if you set this value too low. Also, it is normal even on the best-behaved networks for occasional timechecks to reflect a spurious large value due to latency or other network conditions.
It is therefore very easy to generate a large number of false alarms using this trap.
If you enable this trap, you should choose a threshold value that truly reflects a critical amount of clock drift to avoid unnecessary alarms for normal transient variances. If your monitoring software has the capability of further restricting alarms only after a certain number or percentage of traps have been raised, you can add extra protection against false alarms.
You may find the Audit Server Notifications feature to be a better way of immediately alerting you to poorly performing clocks than this trap.

Since the first timecheck on any system after the time service starts is likely to be quite large (due to the clock not having been set yet), the Ignore variance alert for first sync setting is highly recommended.

The Domain Time MIB File

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