Time drift of 5 minutes between NSX and vSphere due to NTP Node Profile misconfiguration

Products

• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

• A time difference of approximately 5 minutes is observed between NSX Manager and vSphere hosts.

• This behavior occurs after the default NTP servers and timezone are modified within the NSX Manager Node Profiles, resulting in mismatched time sources across the environment.

• One possible symptom is that NSX Host Transport Node(s) may show a "Host Disconnected" state in the NSX UI.

Environment

VMware NSX

Cause

• The NSX Node Profile was configured to use different NTP servers than the vSphere hosts.

• Divergent NTP sources can lead to time synchronization failures and clock drift between VMware components.

Resolution

To resolve the time drift, configure NSX to use the identical NTP servers utilized by the vSphere environment:

1. Log in to the NSX Manager user interface.

2. Navigate to System > Fabric > Profiles > Node Profiles.

3. Select and edit the affected Node Profile (e.g., "All NSX Nodes").

4. Under the NTP Servers configuration, remove the incorrect entries and input the IP addresses of the NTP servers currently configured on the vSphere hosts.

5. Save the Node Profile. The changes will automatically push to the Manager and Edge nodes.

6. Verify via command line or UI that the time on the NSX nodes converges with the vSphere hosts.

Additional Information

Configuring NTP on Appliances and Transport Nodes