Technical Tip: Impact of changing NTP settings

[mattchow_FTNT]

Description	This article describes what is the impact of changing NTP settings during production.
Scope	FortiGate.
Solution	It is strongly recommended to use Network Time Protocol(NTP) to maintain system time accuracy, but it is not recommended to change NTP settings during production to prevent potential issues as shown below: Changing NTP settings may lead to data loss such as system events log, security events log, etc. Inaccurate timestamps on traffic graphs, scheduling, logs, etc. Inconsistencies in data collection may affect services that rely on synchronized time and cause operation disruption. Difficulty in incident investigation and inconsistent timestamps may lead to correlated events across different devices, hindering incident investigation and troubleshooting logs such as packet capture that usually refers to local workstation time. Incorrect NTP settings can result in synchronization between devices impacting overall system performance. In regulated industries, incorrect time settings can lead to compliance violations due to inaccurate record-keeping and reporting. Related articles: Technical Tip: Troubleshoot NTP synchronization issue CLI Reference - config-system-ntp