POiSON WORLD

A newly configured Solaris 10 server, successfully configured a ntp client. But when trying to start ntp service its getting failed and going into maintenance mode.
Due to this there a 15 minutes of time difference between this server and other servers.

bash-3.00$ svcs ntp
maintenance         16:12:09 svc:/network/ntp:default

After checking in detail :

bash-3.00$ svcs -x ntp
svc:/network/ntp:default (Network Time Protocol (NTP))
 State: maintenance since Sun Jan 08 08:12:07 2012
Reason: Start method failed repeatedly, last exited with status 1.
   See: http://sun.com/msg/SMF-8000-KS
   See: xntpd(1M)
   See: ntpdate(1M)
   See: ntpq(1M)
   See: /var/svc/log/network-ntp:default.log
Impact: This service is not running.

In logfile:

[ Aug 11 13:11:15 Executing start method ("/lib/svc/method/xntp") ]
/sbin/sh: /lib/svc/method/xntp: not found
[ Aug 11 13:11:15 Method "start" exited with status 1 ]

To resolve the same encounter error here is a solution :
Actually there is a library and daemon file is missing on server where ntp is not starting.
So here just we need to copy these two files from a server where ntp is working fine.
“xntp” and “xntpd”
If you copy only “xntp” then another error will be recorded in ntp log file like:

[ Jan 15 16:02:56 Executing start method ("/lib/svc/method/xntp") ]
/lib/svc/method/xntp: /usr/lib/inet/xntpd: not found
[ Jan 15 16:05:54 Method "start" exited with status 1 ]
[ Jan 15 16:12:02 Leaving maintenance because disable requested. ]

Here check if you already have “xntpd” file at its place then not required to copy. If doesn’t exists then copy these two files on server where you’re facing issue.

1) /lib/svc/method/xntp
2) /usr/lib/inet/xntpd

After copy :

root@proderp # cd /lib/svc/method/

root@proderp # chmod 555 xntp
root@proderp # chgrp bin xntp

root@proderp # cd /usr/lib/inet/

root@proderp # chmod 555 xntpd
root@proderp # chgrp bin xntpd

After copying, changing permission and ownership disable and enable ntp service it should work :

root@proderp # svcadm disable svc:/network/ntp:default
root@proderp # svcadm enable svc:/network/ntp:default
root@proderp # svcs ntp
STATE STIME FMRI
online 16:12:09 svc:/network/ntp:default