Cisco Cisco Firepower Management Center 4000

Time settings are part of the system policy. You can specify the time settings either by creating a new 
system policy or by editing an existing policy. In either case, the time setting is not used until you apply 
the system policy.

Note that time settings are displayed on most pages on the appliance in local time using the time zone 
you set on the Time Zone page (America/New York by default), but are stored on the appliance itself 
using UTC time. In addition, the current time appears in UTC at the top of the Time Synchronization 
page (local time is displayed in the Manual clock setting option, if enabled).

You must use native applications, such as command line interfaces or the operating system interface, to 
manage time settings for Sourcefire Software for  X-Series. Synchronize time for Sourcefire Software 
for  X-Series and its managing Defense Center from the same physical appliance or NTP server. For 
more information, see the Cisco Software for X-Series Installation Guide. 

You can synchronize the appliance’s time with an external time server. If you specify a remote NTP 
server, your appliance must have network access to it. Do not specify an untrusted NTP server. 
Connections to NTP servers do not use configured proxy settings. To use the Defense Center as an NTP 
server, see 

.

Cisco recommends that you synchronize your virtual appliances to a physical NTP server. Do not 
synchronize your managed devices (virtual or physical) to a Virtual Defense Center.

Ensure that the time on your Defense Center and managed devices matches after time synchronization. 
Otherwise, unintended consequences may occur when the managed devices communicate with the 
Defense Center.

The procedure for synchronizing time differs slightly depending on whether you are using the web 
interface on a Defense Center or a managed device. Each procedure is explained separately below.

Admin

Select 

.

The System Policy page appears.

You have the following options:

To modify the time settings in an existing system policy, click the edit icon (

) next to the system 

policy.

To configure the time settings as part of a new system policy, click 

.

Provide a name and description for the system policy as described in 

, and click 

.

In either case, the Access List page appears.

Click 

.

The Time Synchronization page appears.

If you want to serve time from the Defense Center to your managed devices, in the 

 

drop-down list, select 

.

You have the following options for specifying how the time is synchronized on the Defense Center:

To set the time manually, select 

. See 

 for information about setting the time after you apply the system policy.