NTP service auto start is not working for VMware ESXi 7.0

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides information on how to resolve NTP auto startup issue.

Symptoms:

• NTP service auto start is not working in ESXi 7.0 
• Even though the start policy of NTP service is set as - start and stop with host, service remains in stopped state after a  reboot.
• This happens when ntpd is running and chkconfig ntpd is on.
• Follow the below steps :

Go to [ Manage ]->[ System ]->[ Time & date ]->[ Edit NTP Settings and  click [SAVE] and close "Edit time configuration" window without changing any settings.

•   The /var/log/hostd.log will have below entries

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:34:00.092Z info hostd[2100484] [Originator@6876 sub=Libs opID=esxui-####-#### user=root] NtpAgentConfigImpl: Updating NTP configuration file '/etc/ntp.conf'
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:34:00.094Z info hostd[2100484] [Originator@6876 sub=Libs opID=esxui-####-#### user=root] Util: ForkExec(/bin/sh ++group=hostd-tmp,mem=40 -c "/etc/init.d/ntpd restart && /bin/chkconfig ntpd off") 4706548

 

Environment

VMware vSphere 7.0

VMware ESXi 7.0.0

Cause

The current startup configuration state is not maintained, which may be due to incorrect NTP settings, host profile enforcement, or conflicts with other services.

Resolution

1. This is a known issue. Currently there is no resolution.
   
   
2. Workaround:

• Change NTP service to public or internal NTP server (IP address or FQDN)
• Change status of ntpd in chkconfig list
• check the status of ntpd  by running the command: 
      chkconfig --list ntpd
• It will be in off state, turn it on by running the command:
     chkconfig ntpd on
• After changing this, service stays in started state persistently across reboots.