IBM AIX 7.3 – Common Problem 222 – Diagnosis and Fix

📖 ~1 min read

Table of contents

1. Symptom & Impact
2. Environment & Reproduction
3. Root Cause Analysis
4. Quick Triage
5. Step-by-Step Diagnosis
6. Solution – Primary Fix
7. Solution – Alternative Approaches
8. Verification & Acceptance Criteria
9. Rollback Plan
10. Prevention & Hardening
11. Related Errors & Cross-Refs
12. References & Further Reading

Symptom & Impact

Servers exhibit time drift and Kerberos or LDAP auth fails due to clock skew.

Environment & Reproduction

ntpd not running, wrong /etc/ntp.conf, or HMC time differs from peers.

lssrc -s xntpd
ntpq -p
date

Root Cause Analysis

xntpd is stopped, ntp peers unreachable, or ntp.conf points to invalid servers.

Quick Triage

Confirm xntpd state and peer reachability.

lssrc -s xntpd
ntpq -p
grep server /etc/ntp.conf

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Test sync manually and inspect /etc/rc.tcpip enablement.

ntpdate -q timehost
grep xntpd /etc/rc.tcpip
errpt | head

Solution – Primary Fix

Update ntp.conf, enable xntpd in rc.tcpip, restart, and force initial sync.

chrctcpip -S xntpd
startsrc -s xntpd
ntpdate -u timehost

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Use NTPv4 peers via timed or rely on HMC for VIOS/LPAR clock sync.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

ntpq shows synchronized peer and date matches reference.

ntpq -p
date
lssrc -s xntpd

Rollback Plan

Restore previous ntp.conf if new peer set is unreachable.

cp -p /etc/ntp.conf.bak /etc/ntp.conf
stopsrc -s xntpd; startsrc -s xntpd
ntpq -p

Prevention & Hardening

Use 3-4 stable NTP peers, monitor via topas, and align HMC and OS time.

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

Related to Kerberos failures, LDAP search errors, and TSM backup mismatches.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for aix-7.3.

View all aix-7.3 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

IBM AIX 7.3 NTP and timekeeping reference.