Oracle Solaris 11 keeps the Real Time Clock (RTC) in Coordinated Universal time (UTC) format. The behavior on x86 platforms is different in this release than in Oracle Solaris 10. 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.
To switch from local time format to UTC format, set the time lag between the kernel and RTC to 0 (zero) as follows:
# rtc -z GMT
If the date/time requires an adjustment, use the date command. See date (1) .
When the switch from UTC to local time is complete, and each time you reconfigure the time zone setting by using the sysconfig command, run the rtc timezone command with the –z option as follows:
# rtc -z timezone
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.