Solaris 11.4 NTP /var/inet/ntp.drift.TEMP:Permission denied

Solaris 11.4 ntpd[860]: [ID 702911 daemon.error] frequency file /var/inet/ntp.drift.TEMP: Permission denied

APPLIES TO :  Solaris Operating System - Version 11.4 to 11.4 [Release 11.0]

SYMPTOMS : After upgrade to Solaris 11.4 customers may see error messages similar to below:
ntpd[860]: [ID 702911 daemon.error] frequency file /var/inet/ntp.drift.TEMP: Permission denied
It will depend on the drift file entry in /etc/inet/ntp.conf

CHANGES :  The ntpd daemon in Solaris releases previous to Solaris 11.4 ran as user root - in Solaris 11.4 the ntpd daemon runs as user daemon

CAUSE :  The cause of the issue is having the drift file location in the /etc/inet/ntp.conf file pointing to a directory path that user daemon cannot write to

SOLUTION :  Use the default driftfile location (/var/ntp/ntp.drift) as it is owned by user daemon to ntpd can then successfully write the drift file

                        JUDI-DEV-01# ls -rlt /var/ntp/ntp.drift
                        -rw-r--r--   1 root root         7 May  4 14:26 /var/ntp/ntp.drift
                        JUDI-DEV-01#
                        JUDI-DEV-01# chown daemon:daemon /var/ntp/ntp.drift
                        JUDI-DEV-01#
                        JUDI-DEV-01# ls -rlt /var/ntp/ntp.drift
                        -rw-r--r--   1 daemon   daemon         7 May  4 14:26 /var/ntp/ntp.drift
                        JUDI-DEV-01#


 To make this change active, the ntp service must be stopped and started (Note this will step the time when ntp starts)

                        JUDI-DEV-01# svcadm restart ntp
                        JUDI-DEV-01#



~Judi~