VMware tools changes virtual machine time on "vmware tools service" restart

[SLCSam]

HI all,

I hope I'm posting in the right place here, let me know if I'm not.

I just converted a hardware server to virutual, it's running server 2003. The conversion works perfectly except everytime i reboot the time changes behind about 6 hours and 10 minutes. I traced this change to a restart of the vmware tools service. I don't have vmware set as the time source for the vm, I am using ntp. I have tried unistalling and reinstalling, but restarting the service still changes the time. Has anyone seen this problem or have any suggestions to fix it?

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Moved to the Virtual Machine and Guest OS forum.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

SearchVMware Blog: http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/virtualization-pro/

Blue Gears Blogs - http://www.itworld.com/ and http://www.networkworld.com/community/haletky

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[oreeh]

Add the following parameters to the VMX and try again

tools.syncTime = false

time.synchronize.continue = false

time.synchronize.restore = false

time.synchronize.resume.disk = false

time.synchronize.resume.memory = false

time.synchronize.shrink = false

[SLCSam]

Sorry, you'll have to forgive the ignorance.

I assumed that these parameters are put in the properties of the VM under the options tab, under general, in the configuration parameters? I added all 6 of them, and booted the machine up and the time did not change. I restarted the the vmware tools service and then the time changed back the 6 hours and 10 min. Let me know if I didn't put the parameters in the right place.

Thanks for the help.

[oreeh]

Have you disable the time synchronization in the VMware tools (inside the VM)?

[SLCSam]

Yes I have, the option to sync time via vmwaretools is not even checked. And it only changes the time when the service is restarted, the time on the server has been right since I set it yesterday.

[oreeh]

Shut down the VM and then add the above settings. Then try again.

If that doesn't work:

-shut down the VM

-remove the VM from inventory

-manually add the options to the VMX file (if not already present)

-add the VM to the inventory

-power on the VM

[SLCSam]

Sorry for the late reply,

I tried everything you listed including checking the vmx file and removing and readding the machine and it still sets the time back about 6 hours and 7 minues when I restart the vmwares tools service. Do you think I need to open a ticket?

[SLCSam]

Found the solution. In working with tech support and my vm guy we found that the hardware clocks on most of my esx hosts were off by the time listed. This made the os time off for that host and that got passed onto the vm clients. Not sure why it only affected ones converted from physical boxes, but correcting the hwclock time fixed my problem.

thanks for the help