ESXi NTP, UTC Time Zone is making a mess

[elopezvaldez]

So, for the past weak I've being having a lot of problems with NTP service on some of my ESXi (v 6.5 U1), and I think it's all related to the fact that my time zone is UTC-06:00.

I have configured all my ESXi to point to my local NTP (Domain Server) server and it does the work, but, the ESXi have +6 hours difference and well, you can imagine the rest, all my VMs are constantly fighting each other trying to have the domain server time vs the ESXi host time, and it's driving me nuts!! Why VMware does not let you change the UTC parameter according to your current time zone.

Do you guys have a workaround about this, or is it just VMware trying to make us pay for an advance support agreement?

[vcallaway]

Here's a solved question regarding the same thing but with version 5.5. Have you seen this KB?

Re: vCenter 5.5 Cannot change timezone

[elopezvaldez]

Hi there! Yeahp, I saw that kb earlier this week, but apparently, in version 6.5 VMware doesn't let you change the time zone of the ESXi host anymore . When i browse to the location mentioned on that KB, I only have this folders:

No "zoneinfo" at all... and I discovered that I have this issue when I add the ESXi to the domain infrastructure, the host correctly synchronize the time with the domain but since the time zone is UTC and my domain is UTC -6, the host stays with the UTC 0 time.

[elopezvaldez]

Well, after trying and doing a lot of research about this topic, I just understood that ESXi hosts doesn't let you change the time zone, and that you can manually change the time in the host via CLI only. And if you join the host to a local domain, the time will be, again, changed automatically, but using it's own time zone (UTC 0) and will display and give to the guest VMs that hour no matter what.

Fortunately I got to fix my domain internal NTP and all my VMs are joined to that domain controller, so, the time is forced with that and they ignores the host time.

I know there's some work around procedures such as changing the VMware tools configuration, or using manual enforced time on every host, but I think this is something VMware should keep an eye on it. Not being able to change time zones on ESXi host is a terrible lock down for us administrators, and I really don't know why, if I can do it on my vCenter appliance configuration UI, I would think that I could do it on my ESXi hosts as well.

Just wanted to give you all this little research work, if you ever encounter this kind of problem, I would be glad to help.

Best regards!

[edmoncu]

Unfortunately, for a site with no domain controller, this will be tricky though. any thoughts on what the solution would be?

[elopezvaldez]

Not yet, only work around like letting my hots with the same time zone and configuring the local time on it, or enabling an NTP server, stuff like that.

[edmoncu]

agree. from experience, the only solution is to have a common single NTP server. so whatever timezone is in place, the time is consistent across devices/deployment.

[StephenMoll]

I believe that ESXi and VCSA since vSphere 5 only use UTC internally.

It is only in the web-client you can affect this by changing timezones, in will cause the web-browser to display all time related fields in local time.

We now do all administration on our clusters in UTC.

Granted that for us this means the time in the cluster is never more than 1 hour different to locally time when daylight savings time is in effect.

[huss179]

Hi has a solution been found for changing timezones on esxi arm host? 

i try enter my timezone via ntp settings and it seems to stay on UTC time. it would be great if a solution was found from what i am reading it was available in earlier release. if there is a work around or fix would you someone be so king as to point me in this direction. thanks 

[StephenMoll]

As I mentioned before. Leave all internal times at UTC.

The time will be automatically adjusted to the time zone setting of your PC when displayed in the web client.

It will also affect the returned time information in PowerShell commandlet output

[huss179]

ok thanks.