How to check SCI time is properly syncing with VM NTP?

Summary

This article explains how to check SCI time is properly syncing with VM NTP

Question

How to verify SCI time against the VM NTP time?

Customer Environment

SCI 5.3.1

Resolution

1] Login to SCI CLI (username:rsa and password: Node Token)
2] Run the command: chronyc tracking
3] Below output is from my Lab SCI
rsa@master-52057bdc ~ $ chronyc tracking
Reference ID    : 42554E50 (66.85.78.80)
Stratum         : 3
Ref time (UTC) : Thu Mar 26 05:58:45 2020
System time     : 396.387756348 seconds slow of NTP time
Last offset     : +7.678009033 seconds
RMS offset      : 125.715812683 seconds
Frequency       : 221812.766 ppm slow
Residual freq   : +72073.070 ppm
Skew            : 5494.750 ppm
Root delay      : 0.283793688 seconds
Root dispersion : 35.606792450 seconds
Update interval : 93.6 seconds
Leap status     : Normal
rsa@master-52057bdc ~ $

4] We need to check a couple of things in this output to verify time/date against the VM NTP

System time: This will tell you if the time is in sync with NTP or not.
Frequency: If you see a number > 500 ppm fast/slow here, it could mean that the time on SCI is continuously drifting even though chrony(an NTP client) is running on it and SCI is able to sync with NTP. This points to time sync problems at the hypervisor level.

5] Below are the couple of article which explains about possible resolutions when time is drifting at an abnormal frequency:

NTP not configured on the ESXi host. See: https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2012069.
HPET misreporting frequency. See: https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1006090.

Article Number:
000010277

Updated:
July 12, 2021 10:29 PM (over 3 years ago)

Tags:
Performance, Configuration, System Network Management, Troubleshooting, Known Issues and Workarounds, SmartCell Insight

Votes:
6

This article is:
helpful
not helpful