Installing Network Time Protocol

Installing Network Time Protocol (NTP) is optional but strongly recommended. If you install NTP, install it on each service node in your cloud deployment.

NTP helps ensure a consistent time of day across all of the service nodes in the cloud. If you enable NTP in a network, configure the service nodes to obtain their time over the network.

• If IP multicast is enabled on the IP subnets on which the service nodes reside, you can leverage IP multicast to configure NTP.

• If IP multicast is not enabled on the IP subnets on which the service nodes reside, configure NTP manually.

How to Install and Configure Network Time Protocol

Before You Begin

If you do not want to use multicast for NTP, you must configure an NTP server.

1. Install the NTP package.

   controller# pkg install ntp

2. Install the configuration file.

   controller# cp /etc/inet/ntp.client /etc/inet/ntp.conf

3. (Optional) Configure the /etc/inet/ntp.conf file if you want to use multicast.
   1. Comment out the multicastclient option.
   2. Uncomment one or more of the server options and provide the specific name of the NTP server or its IP address.

      The configuration file would resemble the following example:

      # multicastclient 224.0.1.1
      ...
      server system1.example.com iburst
      server system2.example.com iburst
      # server server_name3 iburst

4. Enable the NTP server SMF service.

   controller# svcadm enable ntp