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• Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request, on page xiv
• Documentation Feedback, on page xiv
• Related Documentation for Cisco Nexus 3000 Series Switches, on page xiv
Audience
This publication is for network administrators who install, configure, and maintain Cisco Nexus switches.
Document Conventions
Command descriptions use the following conventions:
bold
DescriptionConvention
Bold text indicates the commands and keywords that you enter literally
as shown.
Italic
[x | y]
{x | y}
[x {y | z}]
Italic text indicates arguments for which the user supplies the values.
Square brackets enclose an optional element (keyword or argument).[x]
Square brackets enclosing keywords or arguments separated by a vertical
bar indicate an optional choice.
Braces enclosing keywords or arguments separated by a vertical bar
indicate a required choice.
Nested set of square brackets or braces indicate optional or required
choices within optional or required elements. Braces and a vertical bar
within square brackets indicate a required choice within an optional
element.
Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request
Preface
DescriptionConvention
variable
string
Examples use the following conventions:
italic screen font
!, #
Indicates a variable for which you supply values, in context where italics
cannot be used.
A nonquoted set of characters. Do not use quotation marks around the
string or the string will include the quotation marks.
DescriptionConvention
Terminal sessions and information the switch displays are in screen font.screen font
Information you must enter is in boldface screen font.boldface screen font
Arguments for which you supply values are in italic screen font.
Nonprinting characters, such as passwords, are in angle brackets.< >
Default responses to system prompts are in square brackets.[ ]
An exclamation point (!) or a pound sign (#) at the beginning of a line
of code indicates a comment line.
Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request
For information on obtaining documentation, using the Cisco Bug Search Tool (BST), submitting a service
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Documentation Feedback
To provide technical feedback on this document, or to report an error or omission, please send your comments
to nexus3k-docfeedback@cisco.com. We appreciate your feedback.
Related Documentation for Cisco Nexus 3000 Series Switches
The entire Cisco Nexus 3000 Series switch documentation set is available at the following URL:
The following table provides an overview of the significant changes to this guide for this current release. The
table does not provide an exhaustive list of all changes made to the configuration guides or of the new features
in this release.
Table 1: New and Changed Features
CHAPTER 1
Release 6.x
DescriptionFeature
Changed in
Release
Where DocumentedAdded or
Not applicableNot applicableFirst 7.x release.No updates since Cisco NX-OS
The system management features documented in this guide are described below:
CHAPTER 2
DescriptionFeature
Active Buffer Monitoring
Warp Mode
User Accounts and RBAC
Session Manager
The Active Buffer Monitoring feature provides
detailed buffer occupancy data to help you detect
network congestion, review past events to understand
when and how network congestion is affecting
network operations, understand historical trending,
and identify patterns of application traffic flow.
In warp mode, the access path is shortened by
consolidating the forwarding table into single table,
resulting in faster processing of frames and packets.
In warp mode, latency is reduced by up to 20 percent.
User accounts and role-based access control (RBAC)
allow you to define the rules for an assigned role.
Roles restrict the authorization that the user has to
access management operations. Each user role can
contain multiple rules and each user can have multiple
roles.
Session Manager allows you to create a configuration
and apply it in batch mode after the configuration is
reviewed and verified for accuracy and completeness.
Cisco Generic Online Diagnostics (GOLD) define a
common framework for diagnostic operations across
Cisco platforms. The online diagnostic framework
specifies the platform-independent fault-detection
architecture for centralized and distributed systems,
including the common diagnostics CLI and the
platform-independent fault-detection procedures for
boot-up and run-time diagnostics.
The platform-specific diagnostics provide
hardware-specific fault-detection tests and allow you
to take appropriate corrective action in response to
diagnostic test results.
You can use system message logging to control the
destination and to filter the severity level of messages
that system processes generate. You can configure
logging to a terminal session, a log file, and syslog
servers on remote systems.
System message logging is based on RFC 3164. For
more information about the system message format
and the messages that the device generates, see the
Cisco NX-OS System Messages Reference.
Call Home provides an e-mail-based notification of
critical system policies. Cisco NX-OS provides a
range of message formats for optimal compatibility
with pager services, standard e-mail, or XML-based
automated parsing applications. You can use this
feature to page a network support engineer, e-mail a
Network Operations Center, or use Cisco Smart Call
Home services to automatically generate a case with
the Technical Assistance Center.
Configuration Rollback
The configuration rollback feature allows users to
take a snapshot, or user checkpoint, of the Cisco
NX-OS configuration and then reapply that
configuration to a switch at any point without having
to reload the switch. A rollback allows any authorized
administrator to apply this checkpoint configuration
without requiring expert knowledge of the features
configured in the checkpoint.
SNMP
The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
is an application-layer protocol that provides a
message format for communication between SNMP
managers and agents. SNMP provides a standardized
framework and a common language used for the
monitoring and management of devices in a network.
RMON is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
standard monitoring specification that allows various
network agents and console systems to exchange
network monitoring data. Cisco NX-OS supports
RMON alarms, events, and logs to monitor Cisco
NX-OS devices.
The Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) feature
(sometimes called port mirroring or port monitoring)
selects network traffic for analysis by a network
analyzer. The network analyzer can be a Cisco
SwitchProbe, a Fibre Channel Analyzer, or other
Remote Monitoring (RMON) probes.
PTP is a time synchronization protocol for nodes distributed across a network. Its hardware timestamp feature
provides greater accuracy than other time synchronization protocols such as the Network Time Protocol (NTP).
A PTP system can consist of a combination of PTP and non-PTP devices. PTP devices include ordinary clocks,
boundary clocks, and transparent clocks. Non-PTP devices include ordinary network switches, routers, and
other infrastructure devices.
CHAPTER 3
PTP is a distributed protocol that specifies how real-time PTP clocks in the system synchronize with each
other. These clocks are organized into a master-slave synchronization hierarchy with the grandmaster clock,
which is the clock at the top of the hierarchy, determining the reference time for the entire system.
Synchronization is achieved by exchanging PTP timing messages, with the members using the timing
information to adjust their clocks to the time of their master in the hierarchy. PTP operates within a logical
scope called a PTP domain.
Starting from Cisco NXOS Release 6.0(2)A8(3), PTP supports configuring multiple PTP clocking domains,
PTP grandmaster capability, PTP cost on interfaces for slave and passive election, and clock identity.
All the switches in a multi-domain environment, belong to one domain. The switches that are the part of
boundary clock, must have multi-domain feature enabled on them. Each domain has user configurable
parameters such as domain priority, clock class threshold and clock accuracy threshold. The clocks in each
domain remain synchronized with the master clock in that domain. If the GPS in a domain fails, the master
clock in the domain synchronizes time and data sets associated with the announce messages from the master
clock in the domain where the GPS is active. If the master clock from the highest priority domain does not
meet the clock quality attributes, a clock in the subsequent domain that match the criteria is selected. The Best
Master Clock Algorithm (BMCA) is used to select the master clock if none of the domains has the desired
clock quality attributes. If all the domains have equal priority and the threshold values less than master clock
attributes or if the threshold values are greater than the master clock attributes, BMCA is used to select the
master clock.
Grandmaster capability feature controls the switch’s ability of propagating its clock to other devices that it is
connected to. When the switch receives announce messages on an interface, it checks the clock class threshold
and clock accuracy threshold values. If the values of these parameters are within the predefined limits, then
the switch acts as per PTP standards specified in IEEE 1588v2. If the switch does not receive announce
messages from external sources or if the parameters of the announce messages received are not within the
predefined limits, the port state will be changed to listening mode. On a switch with no slave ports, the state
of all the PTP enabled ports is rendered as listening and on a switch with one slave port, the BMCA is used
to determine states on all PTP enabled ports. Convergence time prevents timing loops at the PTP level when
grandmaster capability is disabled on a switch. If the slave port is not selected on the switch, all the ports on
the switch will be in listening state for a minimum interval specified in the convergence time. The convergence
time range is from 3 to 2600 seconds and the default value is 3 seconds.
The interface cost applies to each PTP enabled port if the switch has more than one path to grandmaster clock.
The port with the least cost value is elected as slave and the rest of the ports will remain as passive ports.
The clock identity is a unique 8-octet array presented in the form of a character array based on the switch
MAC address. The clock identity is determined from MAC according to the IEEE1588v2-2008 specifications.
The clock ID is a combination of bytes in a VLAN MAC address as defined in IEEE1588v2.
PTP Device Types
The following clocks are common PTP devices:
Ordinary clock
Communicates with the network based on a single physical port, similar to an end host. An ordinary
clock can function as a grandmaster clock.
Boundary clock
Typically has several physical ports, with each port behaving like a port of an ordinary clock. However,
each port shares the local clock, and the clock data sets are common to all ports. Each port decides its
individual state, either master (synchronizing other ports connected to it) or slave (synchronizing to a
downstream port), based on the best clock available to it through all of the other ports on the boundary
clock. Messages that are related to synchronization and establishing the master-slave hierarchy terminate
in the protocol engine of a boundary clock and are not forwarded.
Transparent clock
Forwards all PTP messages like an ordinary switch or router but measures the residence time of a packet
in the switch (the time that the packet takes to traverse the transparent clock) and in some cases the link
delay of the ingress port for the packet. The ports have no state because the transparent clock does not
need to synchronize to the grandmaster clock.
There are two kinds of transparent clocks:
End-to-end transparent clock
Measures the residence time of a PTP message and accumulates the times in the correction field of
the PTP message or an associated follow-up message.
PTP operates only in boundary clock mode. We recommend that you deploy a Grand Master Clock (10 MHz)
upstream. The servers contain clocks that require synchronization and are connected to the switch.
End-to-end transparent clock and peer-to-peer transparent clock modes are not supported.
PTP Process
The PTP process consists of two phases: establishing the master-slave hierarchy and synchronizing the clocks.
Within a PTP domain, each port of an ordinary or boundary clock follows this process to determine its state:
PTP Process
Peer-to-peer transparent clock
Measures the residence time of a PTP message and computes the link delay between each port and
a similarly equipped port on another node that shares the link. For a packet, this incoming link delay
is added to the residence time in the correction field of the PTP message or an associated follow-up
message.
• Examines the contents of all received announce messages (issued by ports in the master state)
• Compares the data sets of the foreign master (in the announce message) and the local clock for priority,
clock class, accuracy, and so on
• Determines its own state as either master or slave
After the master-slave hierarchy has been established, the clocks are synchronized as follows:
• The master sends a synchronization message to the slave and notes the time it was sent.
• The slave receives the synchronization message and notes the time that it was received. For every
synchronization message, there is a follow-up message. The number of sync messages should be equal
to the number of follow-up messages.
• The slave sends a delay-request message to the master and notes the time it was sent.
• The master receives the delay-request message and notes the time it was received.
• The master sends a delay-response message to the slave. The number of delay request messages should
be equal to the number of delay response messages.
• The slave uses these timestamps to adjust its clock to the time of its master.
PTP requires no license. Any feature not included in a license package is bundled with the Cisco NX-OS
system images and is provided at no extra charge to you. For a complete explanation of the Cisco NX-OS
licensing scheme, see the Cisco NX-OS Licensing Guide.
Guidelines and Limitations for PTP
• In a Cisco Nexus 3500 only environment, PTP clock correction is expected to be in the 1- to 2-digit
range, from 1 to 99 nanoseconds. However, in a mixed environment, PTP clock correction is expected
to be up to 3 digits, from 100 to 999 nanoseconds.
• PTP operates only in boundary clock mode. End-to-end transparent clock and peer-to-peer transparent
clock modes are not supported.
• PTP operates when the clock protocol is set to PTP. Configuring PTP and NTP together is not supported.
Configuring PTP
• PTP supports transport over User Datagram Protocol (UDP). Transport over Ethernet is not supported.
• PTP supports only multicast communication. Negotiated unicast communication is not supported.
• PTP is limited to a single domain per network.
• PTP-capable ports do not identify PTP packets and do not time-stamp or redirect those packets to CPU
for processing unless you enable PTP on those ports. This means that if the PTP is disabled on a port,
then the device will be capable of routing any multicast PTP packets, regardless of their type, assuming
that there is a multicast state present for this. None of these multicast PTP packets from this port will be
redirected to CPU for processing, because the exception used to redirect them to the CPU is programmed
on a per-port basis, based on whether the PTP is enabled or not on the respective port.
• 1 packet per second (1 pps) input is not supported.
• PTP over IPv6 is not supported.
• Cisco Nexus 3500 Series switches support a maximum of 48 PTP sessions.
• Cisco Nexus switches should be synchronized from the neighboring master using a synchronization log
interval that ranges from –3 to 1.
• Beginning with Cisco NX-OS Release 6.0(2)A8(7), all unicast and multicast PTP management messages
will be forwarded as per the forwarding rules. All PTP management messages will be treated as regular
multicast packets and process these in the same way as the other non-PTP multicast packets are processed
by Cisco Nexus 3500 switches.
• Cisco Nexus 3500 Series switches do not support PTP on 40G interfaces.
• You must configure the incoming port as L3/SVI to enable forwarding of the PTP unicast packets.
Default Settings for PTP
The following table lists the default settings for PTP parameters.
0. PTP multi domain is disabled by default.PTP domain
255PTP priority 1 value when advertising the clock
255PTP priority 2 value when advertising the clock
1 log secondPTP announce interval
1 log secondPTP sync interval
3 announce intervalsPTP announce timeout
1 log secondPTP minimum delay request interval
Configuring PTP
Configuring PTP Globally
You can enable or disable PTP globally on a device. You can also configure various PTP clock parameters
to help determine which clock in the network has the highest priority to be selected as the grandmaster.
Configures the priority1 value to use when
advertising this clock. This value overrides the
default criteria (clock quality, clock class, and
so on) for the best master clock selection. Lower
values take precedence.
The range for the value is from 0 to 255.
Configures the priority2 value to use when
advertising this clock. This value is used to
decide between two devices that are otherwise
equally matched in the default criteria. For
example, you can use the priority2 value to give
a specific switch priority over other identical
switches.
The range for the value is from 0 to 255.
Displays the PTP status.(Optional) switch(config) # show ptp brief
Displays the properties of the local clock.(Optional) switch(config) # show ptp clock
Saves the change persistently through reboots
and restarts by copying the running
configuration to the startup configuration.
Example
The following example shows how to configure PTP globally on the device, specify the source IP
address for PTP communications, and configure a preference level for the clock:
switch# configure terminal
switch(config)# feature ptp
switch(config)# ptp source 10.10.10.1
switch(config)# ptp priority1 1
switch(config)# ptp priority2 1
switch(config)# show ptp brief
PTP port status
----------------------Port State
------- -------------switch(config)# show ptp clock
PTP Device Type: Boundary clock
Clock Identity : 0:22:55:ff:ff:79:a4:c1
Clock Domain: 0
Number of PTP ports: 0
Priority1 : 1
Priority2 : 1
Clock Quality:
Class : 248
Accuracy : 254
Offset (log variance) : 65535
Offset From Master : 0
Mean Path Delay : 0
Steps removed : 0
switch(config) # [no] ptp domain value
clock-class-threshold value
Configures the source IP address for all PTP
packets.
The ip-address can be in IPv4 format.
Enables configuring multi domain feature on
the switch. It also allow you to set the
attributes such as priority, clock-class threshold
, clock-accuracy threshold, transition priorities
etc. on the switch.
Specify the values for the domain and priority.
The range for the domain value is from 0 to
127. The default value of the domain is 0
The range for the priority value is from 0 to
255. The default value of the priority is 255
Specify the values for domain and clock class
threshold. The default value is 248.
The range for the domain value is from 0 to
127.
The range for the clock-class-threshold value
is from 0 to 255.
Step 7
switch(config) # [no] ptp domain value
clock-accuracy-threshold value
Note
It is not necessary that a clock class
threshold value ensure election of
the slave clock on any ports. The
switch uses this value to determine
whether the source clock is
traceable. If the clock class value
from the peer is higher or equal than
the clock class threshold value in
a domain, the switch runs BMCA
to elect the slave port from a
domain. If none of the domains has
the clock class below the threshold
value, the switch runs BMCA on
all the PTP enabled ports to elect
the best clock.
Specify the values for domain and clock
accuracy threshold. The default value is 254.
The range for the clock-accuracy-threshold
value is from 0 to 255.
Step 8
Step 9
switch(config) # [no] ptp multi-domain
transition-attributes priority1 value
switch(config) # [no] ptp multi-domain
transition-attributes priority2 value
Sets the domain transition-attributes priority1
value that is used when sending a packet out
from this domain to a peer domain. The value
of the priority1 in the announce message from
the remote port is replaced by the value of
domain transition-attributes priority1 when
the announce message has to be transmitted to
a peer in a domain, that is different from that
of the slave interface. The default value is 255.
The range for the transition-attributes priority1
value is from 0 to 255.
Sets the domain transition-attributes priority2
value that is used when sending a packet out
from this domain to a peer domain. The value
of the priority2 in the announce message from
the remote port is replaced by the value of
domain transition-attributes priority2 when
the announce message has to be transmitted to
a peer in a domain, that is different from that
of the slave interface. The default value is 255.
The range for the transition-attributes priority2
value is from 0 to 255.
Step 10
switch(config-if) # [no] ptp domain value
Associates a domain on a PTP enabled
interface. If you do not configure the domain
specifically on an interface, it takes the default
value (0).
The range for the domain value is from 0 to
127.
Example
The following example shows the PTP domains configured on a switch: