William L. Maltby wrote: > On Sat, 2006-07-15 at 13:19 +1000, Centos-admin wrote: >> I have a centos 4.3 x86-64 (athlon64 with cool-n quiet enabled) with >> vmware server 1.0 installed and working beautifully with the annoying >> exception of my guest machines clocks (centos, ubuntu etc) run very >> fast. I've read the vmware white paper on guest clocks, tried all their >> suggestions and had no joy. I've tried passing the clock=x parameters to >> the guests kernel etc to no avail. There is one last hope according to >> the white paper....install vmware tools and then set clock=pmtr and then >> use ntp from within the guest to sync the time periodically. > This was discussed recently on this list and it looks like maybe you > didn't search CentOS lists? I don't use it, but IIRC, the "pmtr" was one > of the possible solutions. Search CentOS and maybe you'll get lucky and > see your config mentioned? I think William is referring to this: http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2006-February/060651.html I successfully use "clock=pit" on i686 environment on a lot of CentOS4.3 and RH9 inside CentOS4.3 installs. However, it still requires the vmware-tools to have been installed and the "Sync to Host Clock" option has been clicked. >> Do any of >> you know a way to get vmware tools installed when you do not run a >> graphical interface (ie runlevel of the box is 3) ? I cant seem to get >> it going. Should I download the tools and copy them into the vm ? > This wasn't discussed, IIRC. And I'm ignorant about that GUI gooey > stuff. Here's a possibility: - Copy the vmware tools ISO image out of the VM Host onto the the Guest. It is found in "/usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/linux.iso" - mount the ISO loopback and copy the RPM/tarball into /tmp/ - unmount - install the VMware-Tools RPM/tarball - run vmware-config-tools.pl (no gui needed). - *don't forget* - edit your Guest VM /etc/grub.conf to add the "clock=pit" (I keep forgetting on new VMs I create...) - shutdown your guest. - Now on your HOST, edit your guest's .vmx file and change the line from: tools.syncTime = "FALSE" to "TRUE". In mine, it's the last line in the .vmx file. I sure wish this could be done from the VMware Server Console... - Fire up the guest and run for cover! I have not tried this, I just poked around trying to figure out what that check-box was causing to change. Worst case, you need to tunnel X through an SSH login from a remote system with an X display and check the checkbox in vmware-toolbox from there... Do *NOT* run NTP in the VMware Guest. The basic clock in the VM isn't precise enough and you'll never get synchronization. NTP is to add accuracy to a reasonably precise but not necessarily accurate clock source. However, it cannot fix an "insane" time-source. You definitely want to run NTP on your VMware Host, though. Best of luck, Ken Key