Cluster Quickstart Error | Time is synchronized across hosts and VC

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

During quickstart process, the 'time is synchronozed across hosts and VC; alert shows up under Configure.

This health check validates the time difference between vCenter Server and ESXi hosts. Any difference larger than 60 seconds causes this check to fail.

Environment

VMware vCenter 7.0.x
VMware vCenter 8.0.x

Cause

When the times settings are inconsistent across vCenter Server and hosts, and the time difference is larger than 60 seconds, the alert can show up.

Note: It is always strongly recommended to have a consistent time synced across your environment - including but not limited to your ESXi hosts, vCenter Appliance, or any other workload. Time differences across an environment can cause unintended side effects.

Resolution

Enable NTP service across the hosts and vCenter Server or synchronize the time settings manually.

If NTP is already enabled, we can try to restart the ntpd service using the below command to fix the issue:

/etc/init.d/ntpd restart

The below KBs assists with setup and troubleshooting NTP:
Configuring vCenter Server to use a Network Time Protocol (NTP) server (57146)