NTP for stack members

[arell12]

We have some 2530 switches and I am currenlty setting them up in an IP Management stack. This is supposed to allow you to manage all the switches from a sinlge IP addres which is assigned the to Stack Commander. All other switches are added as members and do not require an IP address for mgmt.

The question that I have is, if you have a member that does not have an IP address how do you confiigure NTP? The switch itself does not have an IP address and cannot ping the NTP server, but I would think that the idea of an IP Management stack is that each switch does not need its own IP address. I would like all the switches to have the correct date and time and if they reboot I would like the date and time to be set correctly automatically, I do not want to have to set the time and date on them if they were to reboot.

[rmorley]

Unfortunately I don't have an answer, just a recommendation.  I have long since given up the managed stack idea, as I find it really cumbersome to manage effectively.  I tried back in the old days with the good ol' 2650's.  Is there a reason you are not assigning an ip?  My suggestion is to give each switch an ip.  If you wanted to go even further, separate the vlan with the ip and use acl's to limit access to them and use it as a management vlan.  Stay away from vlan1 as a best practice.  Just my two cents.  Any one else concur?  Or am I off the mark.

[Vince-Whirlwind]

The "member" switch doesn't need an IP address if you want to manage it via its "Commander".

The "member" switch *does* need an IP address if you want it to be communicating with other devices on your network, eg, your NTP server, your syslog server, etc...

Basically, ditch the idea of "IP Management Stack". It's useless.