http://patrick.wagstrom.net/weblog/2008/02/15/vmware-time-synchronization/ Thoughts of a Cautious Technocrat Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:07:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 http://patrick.wagstrom.net/weblog/2008/02/15/vmware-time-synchronization/comment-page-1/#comment-25 Raphael Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:00:12 +0000 http://patrick.wagstrom.net/wp/?p=337#comment-25 I encountered the same problem. <br xmlns:my="http://patrick.wagstrom.net/xml/blog/1"> My OpenBSD VM was running flawlessly on VMware Server 1.0.5 installed on Ubuntu 6.10 server. Everything was fine, time was synchronized over ntp. <br xmlns:my="http://patrick.wagstrom.net/xml/blog/1"> <br xmlns:my="http://patrick.wagstrom.net/xml/blog/1"> Then came the end of life announce of Ubuntu 6.10 and I decided to upgrade first to 7.04, then to 7.10. <br xmlns:my="http://patrick.wagstrom.net/xml/blog/1"> <br xmlns:my="http://patrick.wagstrom.net/xml/blog/1"> Now that I am running on 7.10, the time seemed to go mad in my VM, going randomly back and forth. I also searched the web to read that tickless kernel was maybe the culprit. I tried to recompile it without success. The time going suddenly back is the REAL annoying problem because a lot of daemons dislike that and simply stop working (like dovecot imap daemon). <br xmlns:my="http://patrick.wagstrom.net/xml/blog/1"> <br xmlns:my="http://patrick.wagstrom.net/xml/blog/1"> The current solution I found was to disable ntp in the VM (which was really precise before), and to install VMware Guest Tools (in Freebsd emulation mode on OpenBSD), and then to activate the time sync functionality of VMware Guest Tools by modifying the .vmx file of your VM with the line : <br xmlns:my="http://patrick.wagstrom.net/xml/blog/1"> tools.syncTime = "TRUE" <br xmlns:my="http://patrick.wagstrom.net/xml/blog/1"> <br xmlns:my="http://patrick.wagstrom.net/xml/blog/1"> Now the time is in the current minute windows and it is NEVER jumping back - the jump back problem is well known and VMware fortunately avoided it with that method. <br xmlns:my="http://patrick.wagstrom.net/xml/blog/1"> <br xmlns:my="http://patrick.wagstrom.net/xml/blog/1"> Hope it will help other people. <br xmlns:my="http://patrick.wagstrom.net/xml/blog/1"> Raphael I encountered the same problem.


My OpenBSD VM was running flawlessly on VMware Server 1.0.5 installed on Ubuntu 6.10 server. Everything was fine, time was synchronized over ntp.




Then came the end of life announce of Ubuntu 6.10 and I decided to upgrade first to 7.04, then to 7.10.




Now that I am running on 7.10, the time seemed to go mad in my VM, going randomly back and forth. I also searched the web to read that tickless kernel was maybe the culprit. I tried to recompile it without success. The time going suddenly back is the REAL annoying problem because a lot of daemons dislike that and simply stop working (like dovecot imap daemon).




The current solution I found was to disable ntp in the VM (which was really precise before), and to install VMware Guest Tools (in Freebsd emulation mode on OpenBSD), and then to activate the time sync functionality of VMware Guest Tools by modifying the .vmx file of your VM with the line :


tools.syncTime = “TRUE”




Now the time is in the current minute windows and it is NEVER jumping back – the jump back problem is well known and VMware fortunately avoided it with that method.




Hope it will help other people.


Raphael

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