I'm having horrible clock skew issues with VMWare Server 1.04 running on a 64-bit CentOS 5.1 host (10GB RAM, 8 processing cores) and a 32-bit 2-proc 2GB CentOS 5.1 guest.
Both the server and guest are barely utilized (I'm still in the testing phase). I recognize that clock skew is par for the course with full-virtualization solutions (and worse with SMP), but this seems excessive.
I'd appreciate any suggestions you could offer.
Here's /var/log/messages from running ntpdate (ntpdate -s example.com) every 10 seconds via a bash script (the skew keeps killing off the ntpd daemon):
Jan 28 13:25:26 guest-vm ntpdate[2554]: step time server 64.25.87.54 offset 7.710381 sec
Jan 28 13:25:46 guest-vm ntpdate[2556]: step time server 64.25.87.54 offset 8.812336 sec
Jan 28 13:25:59 guest-vm ntpdate[2559]: step time server 64.25.87.54 offset 2.063628 sec
Jan 28 13:26:05 guest-vm ntpdate[2561]: step time server 64.25.87.54 offset -5.211154 sec
Jan 28 13:26:19 guest-vm ntpdate[2565]: step time server 64.25.87.54 offset 1.677524 sec
Jan 28 13:26:33 guest-vm ntpdate[2571]: step time server 64.25.87.54 offset 5.063104 sec
Jan 28 13:26:36 guest-vm ntpdate[2573]: step time server 64.25.87.54 offset 1.572231 sec
Jan 28 13:26:53 guest-vm ntpdate[2575]: step time server 64.25.87.54 offset 7.623636 sec
Jan 28 13:26:56 guest-vm ntpdate[2577]: step time server 64.25.87.54 offset 1.427536 sec
Jan 28 13:27:10 guest-vm ntpdate[2579]: step time server 64.25.87.54 offset 4.343356 sec
Jan 28 13:27:13 guest-vm ntpdate[2581]: step time server 64.25.87.54 offset 1.185097 sec
Jan 28 13:27:28 guest-vm ntpdate[2583]: step time server 64.25.87.54 offset 6.050440 sec
Jan 28 13:27:31 guest-vm ntpdate[2588]: step time server 64.25.87.54 offset 1.395005 sec
Jan 28 13:27:31 guest-vm ntpdate[2587]: adjust time server 64.25.87.54 offset 0.153568 sec
I've tried booting with "clock=pmtmr" and "clock=pit". All power saving is disabled on the host and the guest. I have tools.syncTime = "TRUE" in the vmx for this guest (and vmware tools installed on the guest). However, I don't know if this is actually used since I don't have X installed. Also, this would, at most, correct my clock every 1 minute, and with these skews, that could lead to the clock being off by over 90 seconds.
Here's some info on the interrupts on the guest:
user@guest-vm $ cat /etc/issue && uname -a && /sbin/hwclock && date && cat /proc/interrupts && sleep 10 && cat /proc/interrupts && date && /sbin/hwclock && date
CentOS release 5 (Final)
Kernel \r on an \m
Linux guest-vm 2.6.18-53.1.6.el5 #1 SMP Wed Jan 23 11:30:20 EST 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
Mon 28 Jan 2008 01:04:49 PM EST -0.104885 seconds
Mon Jan 28 13:04:47 EST 2008
CPU0 CPU1
0: 97505 0 IO-APIC-edge timer
1: 8 1 IO-APIC-edge i8042
6: 4 0 IO-APIC-edge floppy
7: 0 0 IO-APIC-edge parport0
8: 2 0 IO-APIC-edge rtc
9: 0 0 IO-APIC-level acpi
12: 104 3 IO-APIC-edge i8042
15: 590 128 IO-APIC-edge ide1
169: 10282 444 IO-APIC-level ioc0
177: 570 831 IO-APIC-level vmxnet ether
185: 21 9 IO-APIC-level vmxnet ether
NMI: 0 0
LOC: 97266 96300
ERR: 0
MIS: 0
CPU0 CPU1
0: 107528 0 IO-APIC-edge timer
1: 8 1 IO-APIC-edge i8042
6: 4 0 IO-APIC-edge floppy
7: 0 0 IO-APIC-edge parport0
8: 2 0 IO-APIC-edge rtc
9: 0 0 IO-APIC-level acpi
12: 104 3 IO-APIC-edge i8042
15: 685 128 IO-APIC-edge ide1
169: 10290 444 IO-APIC-level ioc0
177: 643 831 IO-APIC-level vmxnet ether
185: 21 9 IO-APIC-level vmxnet ether
NMI: 0 0
LOC: 107287 106321
ERR: 0
MIS: 0
Mon Jan 28 13:04:57 EST 2008
Mon 28 Jan 2008 01:05:13 PM EST -0.942595 seconds
Mon Jan 28 13:04:58 EST 2008