[ale] Clock Drift in VMware Server

[Michael H. Warfield]

On Thu, 2009-05-28 at 16:53 -0400, Chris Fowler wrote:
> I'm running VMware Server 2.0 on Centos 5.2 and I have 5.2 guests.  The
> clock drift on the guests is horrible.  I've written a script that
> updates the clock

	Just out of pure curiosity...  Have you looked at a lighter weight
virtualization?  Something like OpenVZ, Linux-vservers, or Virtuoso?  In
each of these, you get a virtualized machine running on a common kernel.
This is similar to Solaris containers or zones or BSD jails or gaols.
If I'm running Linux on Linux that's the only way I go anymore.  It just
doesn't make any sense to me to be running a heavy weight native or para
virtualization for things that really don't need it and you don't need
it if they all run on a compatible Linux kernel.

	I've got close to 3 dozen virtual machines with web servers and
database engines running on one host engine using OpenVZ and the load
average stays sane.  I can't do a third of that with VMware.  I'm even
running things like CentOS guests on Fedora hosts or Ubuntu or Debian on
same.  Only requirement is that they run on the same kernel.  They have
their own namespaces and networking and quota and resources and such.

	In the upcoming kernels, similar functionality now exists in the form
of lxc containers.  Most of the core functionality is now in the
mainline kernel with 2.6.29 with some limited functionality in versions
prior to that.

> 28 May 10:34:51 ntpdate[4522]: step time server 198.137.202.16 offset
> 558.557700 sec
> 28 May 11:43:41 ntpdate[12168]: step time server 216.14.97.75 offset
> 525.761734 sec
> 28 May 12:49:42 ntpdate[19722]: step time server 69.31.13.210 offset
> 357.566419 sec
> 28 May 13:54:41 ntpdate[27432]: step time server 209.104.4.231 offset
> 298.270392 sec
> 28 May 15:01:02 ntpdate[2459]: step time server 66.79.148.39 offset
> 378.376557 sec
> 28 May 16:08:38 ntpdate[10010]: step time server 207.171.30.106 offset
> 454.967227 sec


> It runs every hour but look at that drift.  Is there anything I can do
> to remedy this?

> Chris

	Regards,
	Mike
-- 
Michael H. Warfield (AI4NB) | (770) 985-6132 |  mhw at WittsEnd.com
   /\/\|=mhw=|\/\/          | (678) 463-0932 |  http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
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