SHA-1 authentication support (for NTPv4)

SHA-1 authentication support allows the NTP client to verify that severs are known and trusted and not intruders masquerading (accidentally or intentionally) as legitimate servers. In cryptography, SHA-1 is a cryptographic hash algorithmic function.

SHA-1 authentication support is only available for NTP clients, not NTP servers.

To configure authentication on a FortiGate NTP client:

config system ntp
    set ntpsync enable
    set type custom
    set syncinterval 1
    config ntpserver
        edit "883502"
            set server "10.1.100.11"
            set authentication enable
            set key **********
            set key-id 1
        next
    end
end

Command	Description
authentication <enable | disable>	Enable/disable MD5/SHA1 authentication (default = disable).
key <passwd>	Key for MD5/SHA1 authentication. Enter a password value.
key-id <integer>	Key ID for authentication. Enter an integer value from 0 to 4294967295.

To confirm that NTP authentication is set up correctly:

# diagnose sys ntp status
synchronized: yes, ntpsync: enabled, server-mode: disabled
ipv4 server(10.1.100.11) 10.1.100.11 -- reachable(0xff) S:4 T:6 selected
server-version=4, stratum=3

If NTP authentication is set up correctly, the server version is equal to 4.