FIX: OpenSolaris Package Manager fails after adding Extras Repository

After setting up the extras repository for OpenSolaris I tried to install VirtualBox via the package manager.

thushan@zeusy:~$ pfexec pkg install virtualbox
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/pkg", line 2598, in ?
    __ret = main_func()
  File "/usr/bin/pkg", line 2541, in main_func
    return install(mydir, pargs)
  File "/usr/bin/pkg", line 710, in install
    update_index=update_index)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/vendor-packages/pkg/client/api.py", line 203, in plan_install
    self.log_operation_end(error=e)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/vendor-packages/pkg/client/api.py", line 1410, in log_operation_end
    self.img.history.log_operation_end(error=error, result=result)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/vendor-packages/pkg/client/history.py", line 680, in log_operation_end
    self.operation_result = result
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/vendor-packages/pkg/client/history.py", line 279, in __setattr__
    raise AttributeError("'history' object attribute '%s' "
AttributeError: 'history' object attribute 'operation_result' cannot be set before 'operation_name'.

pkg: This is an internal error.  Please let the developers know about this
problem by filing a bug at http://defect.opensolaris.org and including the
above traceback and this message.  The version of pkg(5) is '87d6ba4c8e1c'.

Uh-oh, what the hell did I break now I thought? After some messing about I realised the time on the machine was a few hours behind – this was just installed on the new hardware I picked up the other day, the certificates were timestamped and I figured this was probably a clash of the space-time continuum. Instead of opting to manually set the time, I let it sync (periodically) with an NTP Server local to us here in Melbourne.

To do this, we enter our NTP server in /etc/inet/ntp.conf like so:

server ntp.mel.connect.com.au

Then we tell it to update itself:

thushan@zeusy:~$ pfexec ntpq -p
 remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset    disp
==============================================================================
*yarrina.connect mumnunah.csse.u  2 u   20   64  377    50.22  -11.747    0.44

Done, now you’ll find that your package manager will no longer fail with the stack-trace as the timestamps will match correctly!

UPDATE: There’s already a bug report about this in the OpenSolaris Bugzilla.