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VMWare host best practice to configure NTP server to PDCe or external source

Hello EE,

We have a PDCe that all our internal environment gets it's time from.  It happens to be a VM and one time the NTP client on my host stopped running and the time on this PDCe was off and started handing out faulty time.

I am wondering how to avoid this situation?  I have my PDCe setup to NTP to time.gov but it still got the time it appears from the host.  What are the best practices and how do you have it setup?
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Avatar of Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
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Excellent!  Yes I found the first article and have the DC setup properly but was concerned as my hosts are getting time from the PDC that is getting time from outside and when the service stopped on one host it was really ugly and I want to make sure I'm setting it up properly to avoid.

I setup the Client, Parameter to NTP, but on the NTP server will it appear as follows or should there be no number 1.2.3:
 1.pool.ntp.org,0x1 2.pool.ntp.org,0x1 3.pool.ntp.org,0x1
We usually setup the Hosts to go directly to the NTP Source. (same source as PDCe)

so that would be:-

server 0.pool.ntp.org
server 1.pool.ntp.org
server 2.pool.ntp.org
server 3.pool.ntp.org

We have read, that's it's etiquitte that, only a single device from your LAN should contact an external NTP server.

I cannot remember where I read that...

but we some clients also use an NTP Virtual Server as a time server, which fetches the time from a random set of servers, to maintain accuracy, and then clients set ALL LAN devices to this NTP Virtual Server (or physical server on the LAN!).
so in the registry I have this:
1.pool.ntp.org,0x1 2.pool.ntp.org,0x1 3.pool.ntp.org,0x1

should be:
server 0.pool.ntp.org,server 1.pool.ntp.org,server 2.pool.ntp.org, server 3.pool.ntp.org
fqdn is 0.pool.ntp.org etc

that's Linux config from our ntp.conf
oh I'm in the windows registry
Capture2.JPG
okay, a little confused here....

I'm discussing hosts getting time from external time source.

and I though your Windows is working correctly getting time from external time source?
Ok my bad put the setting in VMware, thought should change PDCe to point to same location
both PDCe and VMware Hosts should point to same NTP location.

some organizations have their own time server.
Ok ill change the PDCe then too once I figure how to add the list.  Thanks
so what are you Windows server set to currently?
Time.gov