NTP problem for virtual RHEL 4 server on VmWare

Fri Nov 7 18:50:05 UTC 2008

Along with the version of VMware software you are running, please also
indicate what hardware  you are using.

-----Original Message-----
From: redhat-list-bounces at redhat.com
[mailto:redhat-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Ian Lists
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2008 1:28 PM
To: General Red Hat Linux discussion list
Subject: Re: NTP problem for virtual RHEL 4 server on VmWare

What version of VMWare are you running?  Make sure you have vmware tools
installed on the guest and the .vmx file for the guest has
"tools.syncTime = "TRUE".  If that is set to true, you should turn off
NTP on the guest and just let the physical host update the guest.

----- "Kenneth Holter" <kenneho.ndu at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hei.
> 
> 
> One of our RHEL 4 servers running on VmWare has a quite serious NTP
> problem.
> I know that NTP can be an issue when running red hat boxes on VmWare,
> so as
> a fix I put this small script in a file in /etc/cron.hourly:
> 
> 
> [root at server cron.hourly]# cat ntpdate
> #!/bin/sh
> /etc/init.d/ntpd stop
> ntpdate 1.2.3.4 >> /tmp/time_adjust.log
> /etc/init.d/ntp
> 
> 
> After investigating the "/tmp/time_adjust.log" file, I was quite
> surprised
> by the amount of drift found on one particular server. Consider this
> extract
> from the file:
> 
> 6 Nov 20:00:01 ntpdate[19373]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -60.504153
> sec
>  6 Nov 20:00:52 ntpdate[19666]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -8.735440
> sec
>  6 Nov 20:01:00 ntpdate[19689]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -1.635632
> sec
>  6 Nov 20:54:06 ntpdate[24198]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -415.894712
> sec
>  6 Nov 21:01:01 ntpdate[24920]: adjust time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> 0.136833
> sec
>  6 Nov 22:01:02 ntpdate[29943]: adjust time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -0.114253
> sec
>  6 Nov 23:01:01 ntpdate[2519]: adjust time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -0.036345
> sec
>  7 Nov 00:01:00 ntpdate[7577]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -1.064935 sec
>  7 Nov 01:00:57 ntpdate[12697]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -3.922577
> sec
>  7 Nov 02:00:21 ntpdate[17733]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -40.421825
> sec
>  7 Nov 02:01:00 ntpdate[17777]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -1.123175
> sec
>  7 Nov 02:57:23 ntpdate[22542]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -218.649820
> sec
>  7 Nov 03:00:36 ntpdate[22900]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -25.284528
> sec
>  7 Nov 03:00:58 ntpdate[22940]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -3.104130
> sec
>  7 Nov 03:52:32 ntpdate[27430]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -509.363952
> sec
>  7 Nov 03:59:50 ntpdate[27943]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -71.430354
> sec
>  7 Nov 04:00:52 ntpdate[28236]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -9.344907
> sec
>  7 Nov 04:01:00 ntpdate[28259]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -1.237651
> sec
>  7 Nov 05:01:01 ntpdate[1363]: adjust time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> 0.390149
> sec
>  7 Nov 06:01:01 ntpdate[6419]: adjust time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -0.185112
> sec
>  7 Nov 07:01:02 ntpdate[11493]: adjust time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -0.228884
> sec
>  7 Nov 08:00:59 ntpdate[16579]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -2.166519
> sec
>  7 Nov 09:00:38 ntpdate[21522]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -23.169420
> sec
>  7 Nov 09:01:02 ntpdate[21558]: adjust time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -0.492106
> sec
>  7 Nov 09:59:26 ntpdate[26329]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -95.154264
> sec
>  7 Nov 10:00:55 ntpdate[26639]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -5.997955
> sec
>  7 Nov 10:01:01 ntpdate[26658]: step time server 1.2.3.4 offset
> -0.506367
> sec
> 
> 
> Does anyone know what may be causing the RHEL box to drift as much as
> 500
> seconds in only one hour?
> 
> Regards,
> Kenneth Holter
> -- 
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