Time sync on ESX 3

[maal]

Hi,

I'm experiencing a strange problem on my ESX 3 servers. I have configured the NTP on one ESX 3 server following the document "Installing and configuring NTP on VMware ESX Server" (sorry i don't have the url).

I'm using the same exact time server on our windows servers and the time is correct.

here is the result of date command on my ESX3:

Tue Jul 17 10:33:52 GMT+1 2007

the GMT+1 is the correct time zone

So the sync is working BUT the time is 3 houres late ???

Ideas are welcome

[skippy33]

Hi,

I'm like you, GMT+1 and when I run date i've got:

[]# date -u

Tue Jul 17 08:44:44 UTC 2007

[]# date

Tue Jul 17 10:44:49 CEST 2007 (the right date...)

I think the CEST is good for you.

Message was edited by:

skippy33

[MayurPatel]

If you are in the UK like me. We don’t strictly obey UTC. We obey GMT and

BST. If you enable UTC in and select the Europe/London your system clock

will be 1hr a drift (depending on the time of the year).

When you installed ESX you "might" have set UTC -3hrs.

Check your hardware clock should be set to your system time. Run hwclock --help command and remove UTC.

Message was edited by:

MayurPatel

Message was edited by:

MayurPatel

Added command details

[dclark]

I seem to recall a similar problem.

I think I had to update the content of the \etc\sysconfig\clock file to;

ZONE="Europe/London"

UTC=false

ARC=false

and also had to copy a GB file into a location that I can't currently remember.

After doing that and then synching the hardware clock;

/sbin/hwclock -–systohc

the time was correct

[maal]

Thank you for the answe but what do you mean by "had to copy a GB file" ?

Anyway i modified the \etc\sysconfig\clock like you said but it changes nothing...

If the time here is 14:00, the time on the ESX is 11h00 ...

When i do a service ntpd restart i have:

\[root@vm1-server root]# service ntpd restart

Shutting down ntpd: \[ OK ]

ntpd: Synchronizing with time server: \[ OK ]

Starting ntpd: \[ OK ]

The time servers i use are the same as the one used on our windows server and on windows the time is correct...

Another idea ???

[Dafish]

This is our documentation we wrote that fixed it for us:

Enable NTP on ESX server

Make sure that the server has the correct time zone. It should be BST.

Copy away the /etc/localtime

cp /etc/localtime /etc/ORIG-localtime

Copy across the London time zone file

cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/London /etc/localtime

Rename NTPConfig file.

mv /etc/ntp.conf /etc/ORIG-ntp.conf

Using vi or nano write the following lines in a new file /etc/ntp.conf

restrict default kod nomodify notrap noquery nopeer

restrict 127.0.0.1

YOUR NTP SERVER ADDRESS

fudge 127.127.1.0 stratum 10

driftfile /etc/ntp/drift

broadcastdelay 0.008

authenticate yes

keys /etc/ntp/keys

Rename step-tickers file

mv /etc/ntp/step-tickers /etc/ntp/ORIG-step-tickers

Using vi or nano write the following line into step-tickers

YOUR NTP SERVER ADDRESS

Enable ntp through the service console firewall

esxcfg-firewall –e ntpClient

Start the ntp daemon

service ntpd start

Check that the time is correct

date

Set the hardware clock to the system time

hwclock --systohc

Check the hardware clock is correct

hwclock

Check the run level of the esx server. There should be a line that reads id:3:initdefault:

vi /etc/inittab

Change the ntpd to start up when the server boots

chkconfig ntpd --add

chkconfig ntpd on --level 3

All should be ok now, remember to cange to you locals file as needed.

[acmcnick]

I had a similar problem.

I ran "tzselect" and then verified the timezone in /etc/localtime and set the timezone in /etc/sysconfig/clock

Make sure you setup NTP properly and run a "hwclock --systohc" don't need to use UTC, I do, but is sounds like it may be an issue where you are at.

Hope this helps.