Hot issue today, the rtc.... Real Time Clock

Sun SPARC server experienced with system timestamp jump backdated to 00:00 January 1st 1970 UTC. Its impacted serious problem since all new created files have had this incorrect time and also lead to database records having incorrect timestamps too.

Fortunately there is SUN Alert (Doc ID: 253828) described bug (Bug ID 6724580) including workaround and definite resolution.

1. Workaround:
- if system experienced with the issue, the time/date can be corrected using "date" command
root@sun1: # date 051113002009
Mon May 11 13:00 WIT 2009

- to make persistent across system reboot, add following lines to "/etc/system" file;
set tod_broken=1
set dosynctodr=0

Note:

These two lines can be safely removed once the fix patch has been applied. This is most efficiently carried out by installing the patch and then removing these two lines from "/etc/system" before performing the system reboot associated with the patch installation

2. Resolution:
Apply "todm5819p_rmc" patch release as follows:

SPARC Platform;
* Solaris 8 with patch 117350-62 or later
* Solaris 9 with patch 139384-01 or later
* Solaris 10 with patch 139514-01 or later