How To Have Solaris ntpd Synchronize Time After Reboot Of A System Or Domain (Doc ID 2087255.1)

Last updated on SEPTEMBER 04, 2023

Applies to:

Goal

To improve system time and NTP synchronization after a reboot of a system or Domain in the event of a system time change at the Hardware level

At the ILOM level there are conditions where the system time may change on reboot. This behavior is discussed in Knowledge Document:

ILOM based SPARC Server's Solaris Clock Initialization During Boot 1929967.1

With the system change by even a few minutes on reboot. especially if ntpd is running in slew mode, there could be a time difference that ntpd cannot correct or quickly correct.

By default the NTPv4 daemon ntpd does not do a initial step of the time on boot up so time differences may exist after reboot when a change in system time takes place at the Hardware level.

This could result in the messages "frequency error -nnnn PPM exceeds tolerance 500 PPM", system time being incorrect, and possibly synchronization lost with the NTP servers.

The ntpd start up behavior has been changed in a update that is now available in Solaris 11.3 SRU2 or greater and Solaris 10 Update 8 or later with Patch 143725-08 (SPARC) / 143726-08 (X86) or greater installed.

With the change ntpd would do a initial step of the time on start up. This has the time more accurate before ntpd continues to run, especially in slew mode.
This avoids the impact to the system time change that may take place at the ILOM on the boot up.

Solution

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