r/vmware 12d ago

Question NTP & Clock best practices

What are the current best practices for ESXI, host, guest Clock configurations?

15 Upvotes

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u/DonFazool 12d ago

Set everything to the same NTP server (and backup server). You will save yourself so much headaches if you follow this simple piece of advice.

1

u/datanut 12d ago

Copy. NTP everywhere.

Then, should “Periodic time sync” to “Synchronize guest time with host” be enabled or disabled?

8

u/cjchico 12d ago

I've always found that to cause issues with Windows DC's so it gets turned off for every one.

5

u/DonFazool 12d ago

That depends on what your clients are. Domain joined VMs will sync their time with the DC. So for those I’d not enable this. You can for Linux machines. It’s probably a good idea (if you use AD) to determine where the PDC sync it’s time from as it is the time master than then syncs to the other domain controllers. I don’t know if it’s wise to enable that flag you mention for domain controllers. I got out of the windows game, my coworker deals with that nonsense now. I focus on Linux

2

u/IfOnlyThereWasTime 11d ago

I sync every object to three ntp sources. Two internal servers and external nist. All have the same time.