Additional Installation Tasks

You might need to perform the following additional tasks before or after an installation.

Configuring Date and Time Before and After an Installation

Oracle Solaris 11 keeps the Real Time Clock (RTC) in Coordinated Universal time (UTC) format. The behavior on x86 platforms is different in Oracle Solaris 11 than in Oracle Solaris 10 and Oracle Solaris 11 Express. The interactive installers enable you to configure the date and time during the installation. As part of that process, the RTC is updated with the time in UTC format. However, AI does not adjust the RTC date and time during an installation. To ensure that the time stamp of installed files are correct, configure the time in the BIOS in UTC format before beginning the installation. On x86 platforms, when using the pkg update command, the OS continues to keep time in RTC in the local time format. This method is used to avoid time inconsistencies between Oracle Solaris 11 BEs and BEs from previous releases.

How to Switch From Local Time Format to UTC Format

1. Set the time lag between the kernel and RTC to 0 (zero), as follows:

   # rtc -z GMT

2. If the date/time requires an adjustment, use the date command. See date(1).

How to Switch From UTC Format to Local Time Format

Use the following procedure when the switch from UTC to local time is complete, and each time you reconfigure the time zone setting by using the sysconfig command.

1. Run the rtc timezone command with the -z option.

   # rtc -z timezone

   For example:

   # rtc -z US/Pacific

2. If the date/time requires an adjustment, use the date command.

Maintaining Local Time on a System Running Multiple Operating Systems That Keep RTC Time as Local Time

If you maintain and boot several operating systems on the same Oracle Solaris 11 system, and those operating systems keep RTC time as local time, there are several ways that these operating systems can coexist from the RTC time point of view:

• Switch from local time to UTC format in the OS that keeps RTC time in local time format.

  For example, if you are dual-booting Windows 7, set the registry key as follows:

  [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation] \
  "RealTimeIsUniversal"=dword:00000001

• Switch from the UTC format to local time on a freshly installed Oracle Solaris 11 system.

• Enable the Network Time Protocol (NTP) in operating systems that assume that the RTC format is running in local time. In this case, the time is synchronized automatically.

Adding a Linux Entry to the GRUB Menu After an Installation

If you are setting up a boot environment in such a way that you install Linux on one partition first and Oracle Solaris on another partition afterwards, you will need to follow certain instructions to ensure that the GRUB menu information from the new installation does not erase the GRUB menu information from a previous installation. For instructions, see How to Add a Linux Entry to the GRUB Menu After Installing Oracle Solaris in Booting and Shutting Down Oracle Solaris on x86 Platforms.