[OpenIndiana-discuss] ntpd not keeping time in sync

[Mark]

 >On 10/07/2011 5:43 a.m., Dan Swartzendruber wrote:
>
> No, I think he meant resetting the time in the BIOS of the VM.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gary Driggs [mailto:gdriggs at gmail.com]
> Sent: Saturday, July 09, 2011 1:42 PM
> To: Discussion list for OpenIndiana
> Subject: Re: [OpenIndiana-discuss] ntpd not keeping time in sync
>
> On Jul 9, 2011, at 8:48 AM, Gary Gendel wrote:
>
>> I suppose this could be true of a virtual machine resetting the time as
> well.
>
> A guest OS should never be allowed to adjust its hosts clock. Sometimes a
> failing motherboard battery can cause issues but NTP should be correcting
> them. Have you tried resarting or disabling/enabling the service?
>

If this is a virtual server, then it is "normal" and the drift will 
depend on physical server load.

The physical timers used by the kernel to keep accurate period counts 
used for local clock don't exist, and the "virtual" replacements don't 
offer much precision.
The host server's cmos clock isn't referenced.

This phenomenon is well documented by VMWare, and outcome varies from 
one OS to the next, depending on how they derive time.

Mark.