Server 2003 time issues

[Monkey God]

So, question about windows time service. Server 2003 Active directory. Large number of servers. Both domain controllers have the proper time. For this example lets say 9:00AM.

Other servers in the domain (also server 2003) - are all showing 9:06AM which breaks Kerberos among other things. All other servers point to DC....restarting the w32 service makes the time correct...then 20-30 seconds later, it jumps forward 6 minutes. No group policies in place with regards to the service. What else can set system time that overrides w32time?

 

[nessus]

Just to be clear, are you talking physical or virtual servers?

I've seen lots of instances like this with virtual servers where the host server had different time than the guest VMs and the virtualization additions would override the guest OS clocks with the time for the host OS clock after the guests had sync'd properly.

The fix in that case is either to disable the resync with the host OS clock, or make sure the host OS clock is also pulling its time sync data from one of the DCs.

 

[Monkey God]

AH yes a good point. These servers are virtual on vmware...
I bet thats it!

 

[Monkey God]

that was it, appreciate it!