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GianniRodari
Contributor
Contributor

NTP service on physical or virtual machine

I'm using vSphere 4.1.0 with 3 host ESXi 4.1.0 which are running about 50 virtual machines.

I'm going to build my guest Linux server to give accurate time to my clients by ntpd service, can I install ntp directly on virtual machine or VMWare suggest to use physical machine ?

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OscarDavey
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Hi,

Set NTP service on host and and all vm will sync from this host..

1) click on host and configuration.

2) click on Time setting and properties

3) in the option tab click NTP setting. and set NTP. and restart the service.

4) Right click on vm edit,,, than option > vmware tool and mark setting sync with host..

Done Smiley Happy

Your Oscar

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Josh26
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

or VMWare suggest to use physical machine ?

As a general rule, VMware will never recommend a physical machine over a virtual one.

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GianniRodari
Contributor
Contributor

Set NTP service on host and and all vm will sync from this host..

Ok, but now I need to build reliable time server for all my clients (included ESX hosts), this machine will do time queries to world NTP servers.

Previously I had Linux physical machine (ntpd service) which I converted in Virtual one but this server is not able to give accurate time!

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GianniRodari
Contributor
Contributor

VMware will never recommend a physical machine over a virtual one

I wanted to say either Virtual machine or Physical machine, not Physical over virtual one.

Virtual machine as time source cannot give accurate time ?!

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Josh26
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

but this server is not able to give accurate time!

Why? If your Linux machine is synchronising upstream with an NTP pool, then it should be perfectly capable of determing drift and associated issues and keeping itself in check.

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Josh26
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

1) click on host and configuration.

2) click on Time setting and properties

3) in the option tab click NTP setting. and set NTP. and restart the service.

4) Right click on vm edit,,, than option > vmware tool and mark setting sync with host..

If you want "accurate" time, then "sync with host", which is a periodic sync, is not at all how you should be doing it.

NTP is meant to run as a long lived daemon, through which it can adjust the kernel's own clock speed and manage drift properly.

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GianniRodari
Contributor
Contributor

Problem is not update time of my virtual machines but to understand if, building new VM with ntpd, it's good clock source for all my clients !

I wish to have unique time source for all my clients, I'd like to build this NTP server (which queries to Internet server) in Vmware environment

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