Curious thing in a Cisco router

Sat Jan 1 01:15:06 UTC 2000

On Fri, 31 Dec 1999, Rubens Kuhl Jr. wrote:

<snip>
> R6(11)-L16#sh clock
> .22:08:22.460 Brazil/East(DST) Fri Dec 31 1999
> R6(11)-L16#sh clock
> .22:08:24.516 Brazil/East(DST) Fri Dec 31 1999
> R6(11)-L16#sh clock
> .22:08:35.599 Brazil/East(DST) Fri Dec 31 1999
> 
> Notice the dot before the time; it was not appearing before, and even on the
> first sample after GMT Y2K-rollover (local time is GMT -0200). It now shows
> up on every 'show clock'.
> 
> Any similar results on any other Cisco shop ?

According to IOS docs:

The system clock keeps an "authoritative" flag that indicates whether the
time is authoritative (believed to be accurate). If the system clock has
been set by a timing source (system calendar, NTP, VINES, and so forth),
the flag is set. If the time is not authoritative, it will be used only
for display purposes. Until the clock is authoritative and the
"authoritative" flag is set, the flag prevents peers from synchronizing to
the clock when the peers' time is invalid.

The symbol that precedes the show clock display indicates the following:

 Symbol
       Description 
 *     Time is not authoritative.
       Time is authoritative.
 .     Time is authoritative, but NTP is not synchronized

-axel