[SOLVED] Date/Time Change Solaris 11.4

I had to manually change the time from the command line which is OK, but I could not do so from GUI (Gnome I think). My password either as administrator or root would not be accepted and the option to change remains locked. I achieved my goal but why not work from a GUI under system?

I am new to Solaris, so there is this learning curve. Big curve for me.

When I'm prompted for the password in the GUI when logged on as a non-privileged user, I have to supply the password of that user, not the root password.

YMMV. I'm not on Solaris or Gnome.

Is root a user or a role in your installation ? In a desktop environment, you cannot directly log in as root when root is a role.

Anyway, manually changing the time is very last centuryish.

Why not using NTP like everyone else ?

Originally Posted by jlliagre Is root a user or a role in your installation ? In a desktop environment, you cannot directly log in as root when root is a role.

Solaris has a root user account (or at least it did through Sol10; not sure about anything later). You can allow users to perform specific tasks that require root access using Role Based Access Control (RBAC). We used that on development systems setting up a captive script that the Oracle users could use to do Oracle updates (which required root access to perform a couple of the install/upgrade steps). It was a godsend to not get pestered to either run those commands for them or give temporary root access.

Anyway, manually changing the time is very last centuryish. Why not using NTP like everyone else ?

I'm not sure why, but I've seen this in Solaris environments before. They'd set the time at boot and it drifted all over the place. Coming into Solaris with a Tru64 background -- where clustering required time sync across cluster members, therefore, NTP -- I could not understand why they didn't use NTP or their resistance to adopting it.

Originally Posted by rnturn Solaris has a root user account (or at least it did through Sol10; not sure about anything later).

By default, root is no more an account on Solaris 11. That's the reason why I asked.

I'm not sure why, but I've seen this in Solaris environments before. They'd set the time at boot and it drifted all over the place. Coming into Solaris with a Tru64 background -- where clustering required time sync across cluster members, therefore, NTP -- I could not understand why they didn't use NTP or their resistance to adopting it.

That's odd. Almost all production Solaris environment I saw since probably Solaris 2.5.1 (1996) had either NTP enabled or at least scheduled ntpdate in the early days.

Originally Posted by jlliagre By default, root is no more an account on Solaris 11. That's the reason why I asked.

Sort of why I qualified that remark. Haven't touched Sol11. So it's RBAC or something like it for everything now? I'd like to see how that works.

That's odd. Almost all production Solaris environment I saw since probably Solaris 2.5.1 (1996) had either NTP enabled or at least scheduled ntpdate in the early days.

I've seen way too many instances of the Solaris admins having 'ntpdate' run but only at boot. The DEC UNIX clusters I inherited when starting a job many years ago were being administered by a Solaris admin and one (of many) Solaris-isms I had to mitigate was to set up NTP despite it being mentioned in the OS's system management documentation as darn near mandatory for stable cluster operation---and these clusters were anything but stable (not just because of not having NTP setup, though). Another site was doing the same darn thing: setting the clock once via 'ntpdate' by querying a router inside the company firewall. (We later found out that it was just having its clock set by someone's wrist watch upon power-up. Yikes!) Maybe I was just particularly aware of how clocks drift from having some work experience doing engineering work in time transfer---even expensive rubidium and much-more-expensive hydrogen maser clocks drift so you can imagine how much a crappy crystal oscillator inside a computer system drifts over time. It's nice to see it getting set up automatically on most Linux distributions now.

Originally Posted by rnturn Sort of why I qualified that remark. Haven't touched Sol11. So it's RBAC or something like it for everything now? I'd like to see how that works.

Definitely RBAC. Root is by default a role but it is very easy to revert it to a "regular" account, although IMHO it is quite a poor practice on production servers.

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37838_01...actask-21.html

Let's see. I did not even try to log in as root. I just used the password for it because my user password did not work. So I went manual.

NTP? I know what that is but I am new to Solaris and have not even looked at that as an option yet.

I do thank all for their input. I am really satisfied since manual worked for the time being.

Is there another way correct time. With VU Control centre Telnet this command change nothig. I use Ultimo 4K with latest OBH and start last week my box time is wrong. I remembe that was file ntp.conf but cant find it from box.

It is not clear what you are saying. Are you sure you are using Solaris?