Time Keeping on VMWare GSX ServerSubmitted by bslatten on Wed, 10/17/2007 - 5:32am.I have a SugarCRM jumpbox running on a GSX server and the date and time are terribly off doesn't advance really at all. I experienced this issue on my Windows guest OS's as well and the fix was to tell the installed WMWare tools to sync time with the host OS clock instead of trying to keep time on their own. I can't see if the WMWare tools are installed for the jumpbox or how to check and see if this setting is correct. I got an email from the staff at jumpbox saying the tools where already installed but the GSX server console indicates that they are not and I can't find any install directory on the system. Has anyone had this issue and what version of Linux can I use to try and install these tools? I'm running this guest on a HP AMD 64 platform. |
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Time offset
I checked our .vmx file, it was set to tools.syncTime = "FALSE", so I changed it to "TRUE" and restarted the server, but the system still is off by 5 hours although the timezone is set correctly and the server's time is set correctly.
Time offset
Ok, first off you are using VMWare right (sorry, I don't know, and we have a wide variety of users so I have to ask), otherwise changing anything in the .vmx file wont help.
If your JumpBox is registered you can try SSHing in and running sudo ntpdate pool.ntp.org. That should force the time to set correctly. If after you do that, the time is not correct.
If it continues to drift after that let me know, we can set something up to keep it in sync. At some point we will be adding something that handles this by default and doesn't depend on the virtualization layer.
Austin
Timesync
There are a few ways to see if the tools are running both from within the JumpBox and from the Guest.
vmware-cmd -l. This will show you the path to your VM's configuration file which you can use to show the guest tools status:vmware-cmd /path/to/JumpBox.vmx gettoolslastactive. That will print outgettoolslastactive() = 1if they are running. It will print out 0 or some larger number if its not running.sudo /etc/init.d/vmware-tools statusto see if they are running.They should be running. I don't think we have any post 1.0 releases that don't have the guest tools running (out of date is another matter, but shouldn't cause a problem).
Actually the timekeeping issue in any virtual environment is a complex problem, we are working on improving this in the JumpBox.
For the time being, if you can't get it to sync properly with the host and you want to try a bandaid fix, you might make sure that time sync is OFF in the JumpBox config file, then set up a cronjob in your JumpBox (after enabling shell access and logging in, of course) that periodically syncs the time to some network/internet source. Set it up by doing the following
sudo nano /etc/cron.hourly/settimeand typing in:#!/bin/sh
/usr/sbin/ntpdate pool.ntp.org &
Now make sure its executable:
sudo chmod a+x /etc/cron.hourly/settime
You can replace pool.ntp.org with whatever time server you want, but that should be acceptable if you don't have an alternative.
Good luck and let me know how it goes.
Austin
Timesync
I'm running version 4.5.1.d from what I can tell, the jumpbox itself doesn't seem to have a version I can see but that is the SugarCRM vers. checked the tools.syncTime value and it is "true" but doesn't seem to help much.
Can I check the file system to see if the tools are there? Where?
Running VMWare Server 1.0.3
other info : group-dist: 4.5.1d-3.1-1
Time Keeping on VMWare GSX Server
the VMWare Guest tools should be installed but if the vmware server console says they aren't then that certainly is an indication that something is wrong. First off, what version of the SugarCRM JumpBox are you using? I will verify that the tools are installed. It is possible that the tools are out of date depending on the version of GSX and the JumpBox version that you are using. But the tools still work when they are out of date.
Second, if the vmware-tools are installed, check the JumpBox.vmx file and see if it says:
tools.syncTime = "FALSE"
if so, change the FALSE to TRUE and restart the JumpBox from the JumpBox admin web page.
Austin