SUSE 10.1 time sync: ntp, vmware tools, cpu=pit not working

[naltoidaddict]

I've got a bunch of suse guests that will randomly decide to leap a few days into the future and it's really starting to cause problems. So (per vmware support) I tried cron'ing an ntp sync command and that didn't work. Vmware tools seems fine as long as the clock is slow but if it steps one minute into the future it becomes worthless. I tried adding the cpu=pit (again, per vmware support) but it doesn't seem to do anything at all unless I'm just not using it right, which may be the case.

Is there a tried and true method for making linux vm's keep the proper time?

(I'm a little stunned that WINDOWS is actually better at keeping time than linux is.)

[AWo]

There is an indeep document about timesync and guests available: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vmware_timekeeping.pdf

You can find good explanations about the reasons why there are problems with Linux and timesync.

There are also some KB articles in the VMware Knowledge Base, especially KB 1420.

When I had a Linux guest where the time doesn't keep synchroized, unfortunatley I never managed to get this in sync by using any of these hints.

What helped to keep the guest close to the real time was:

1. Reduce the number of concurring guests on the host.

2. Reduce the number of vCPU's, removing the SMP kernel with a single CPU kernel one, respectively.

3. Driving ntp with a very short sync intervall, vmtools timesync disabled.

This doesn't help with the variing duration of specific time periods (60 seconds realtime != 60 seconds in the guest)

AWo