Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage System: How to sync to an NTP Server that is behind (in time) the NAS Appliance

Asset ID:	1-71-1561520.1
Update Date:	2018-01-05
Keywords:

Solution Type Technical Instruction Sure

Solution 1561520.1 : Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage System: How to sync to an NTP Server that is behind (in time) the NAS Appliance

Applies to:

Sun ZFS Storage 7120 - Version All Versions to All Versions [Release All Releases]
Sun Storage 7310 Unified Storage System - Version All Versions to All Versions [Release All Releases]
Sun Storage 7210 Unified Storage System - Version All Versions to All Versions [Release All Releases]
Sun Storage 7110 Unified Storage System - Version All Versions to All Versions [Release All Releases]
Sun ZFS Storage 7420 - Version All Versions to All Versions [Release All Releases]
7000 Appliance OS (Fishworks)

Goal

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The customer wished to synchronize his 7420 to his other in-house servers that were using NTP. The other servers had been sync'ed to an in-house NTP server.

The problem was that the customer had been using the 7420 for quite some time and he realized that the time on the 7420 was approximately 5 minutes ahead of the other servers in the data center.

He considered the possibility that if the 7420 was sync'ed using NTP it would force the 7420 to 'go back in time' and potentially create a situation whereby a file creation date could have been after a subsequent file modification time.

The goal was to slow down time, as far as the 7420 was concerned, so that it allowed the other servers to catch up to it - so that when it was sync'ed using NTP, the step in time down (or up) would be inconsequential.

Solution

Please contact Oracle Support for further assistance.

Oracle Support personal can perform a procedure to (gradually) synchronize the time between the Series 7000 NAS Appliance and the NTP server.

The procedure that can be used is as follows:

1. Disable the NTP service:

CLI> configuration services ntp disable

2. Go to the appliance shell

a. Check the current time on the NTP server (where time1.xxx.net is the NTP server hostname, '-q' = query only)

# ntpdate –q time1.xxx.net

=> Record the time offset as this will be the value used in the 'date –a -<OFFSET>' command (different for each head)

b. Slowly adjust the time by the required OFFSET (positive or negative) from the previous command, eg.:

# date –a -300 (the -300 was for a 300 second negative adjustment)

=> This took roughly an hour to complete ...

3. Exit the appliance shell:

# exit

4. Configure the NTP server(s):

CLI> configuration services ntp set servers=time1.xxx.net, time2.xxx.net

5. Check that the time difference between the NAS appliance and the NTP server is now 'acceptable':

CLI> confirm shell ntpdate –q time1.xxx.net

6. Re-enable NTP service:

CLI> configuration services ntp enable

7. Check the logs to verify that the NTP service started and there are no issues.

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