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VPS Incorrect Date/Time
SirRobertDropTables
Member
in Help
This seems to be a common problem I encounter with OpenVZ VPS providers.. namely, they set the UTC time to be incorrect.
Then the customers cannot fix this problem (e.g. with ntpdate, etc.) and the providers claim it's not fixable because frankly, they do not know how to fix it.
It would be grand if someone could provide instructions for which I/we could all instruct our providers with in order to clean up the time keeping on our servers!
Comments
That's one of the reasons why I always go for kvm over openvz. But really, if a provider can't keep something like a clock setup correctly, run away.
For anything large scale or requiring long term reliability I'm 100% with you. I tend to use OpenVZ for smaller pet projects that may or may not turn into something worthwhile.
Share the provider name with us.
I usually send a message asking them to setup NTP on the host because they keep breaking my DNS.
... eventually I just replace them with a KS-1 or better.
This is the approach I have taken, along with giving them links like the following:
https://download.openvz.org/doc/OpenVZ-Users-Guide.pdf -- Page 64
Haven't used this myself yet but you could take a look:
https://github.com/wolfcw/libfaketime
I think a lot of this stems from the 50 ways to exploit ntpd and use it in amp attacks over the past few years, I have to admit I have been guilty of missing a few nodes due to scale, it takes 30 seconds to fix.
Your provider just needs a ticket saying the time is off, if they don't know what to do from there... you really do have a problem.
Sure, here you go:
yum -y install ntp && chkconfig ntpd on && service ntpd start
The end. I'll also echo everyone else's statement here that if they can't figure it out, either flat out telling you GFY or not trying to make an effort to figure it out, you need to run away. I'll also echo @AnthonySmith that sometimes a host is going to miss it on node setup, so don't kick 'em inna nutz immediately and then post about it on forums; give 'em time to fix it or to fail.
Yeah every single KVM or OpenVZ VM I've ever used has always had the hypervisor's system clock set to accurate UTC time,
wonder if doing that on the VM itself would fix it
Not in OpenVZ. In OpenVZ the time comes from the host, only timezone can be changed in VM. In KVM, both time and timezone are set in VM.