will esxi not set time via ntp if the time difference is more than a few hours?

[LucasAlbers]

Today I discovered an additional step.

If you standup an esxi server with a static ip address, you need to manually set the ntp servers.

Fair enough, if you set the ntp server and tell it to restart to ntp, you expect it to update the time.

If the time difference is too great between the client and the ntp server, it won't set the time.

Is this standard linux behavior, I've never seen it.

If your time differential is too great it won't update the time from the ntp server, until you set it manually once.

This was the behavior I experienced on four 4.0u2 systems I setup today.

[EricTrentMiller · Accepted solution]

I had similar problems, not sure what I did to resolve it but I've never had it again since I started installing ESX using the following steps regarding time.

1. Set the BIOS hardware clock to UTC

2. install esx

3. connect via the vsphere client, go the time config page and set up NTP with pool.ntp.org, restart the service.

bounce the ESX box, re-connect and the time shows up perfectly synced with my local machine.

hope this helps.