SDDC Manager NTP reconfiguration reports success but fails to update appliance on VMware Cloud Foundation

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager / VCF Installer

Issue/Introduction

• Reconfiguring NTP servers through the SDDC Manager UI or API, the workflow reports a SUCCESS status. However, the environment exhibits the following symptoms:
  
  
  • SDDC Manager dashboard displays ENTITY_NTP_NOT_SYNCED errors.
    
    
  • The /etc/ntp.conf file on the SDDC Manager appliance does not reflect the new NTP server IP addresses.
    
    
  • Time synchronization continues to fail despite the UI indicating the change was applied.
    
    
• Error message:
  
        Failed to validate NTP configuration. Validate input specification as new NtpConfiguration to VMware Cloud Foundations

Environment

VMware SDDC Manager 5.2.x

Cause

This issue is a know issue where the SDDC Manager orchestration layer successfully updates its internal database but fails to push the configuration changes to the underlying Photon OS appliance's NTP service.

Resolution

• Broadcom is aware of the issue and are working on a permanent fix. This will be available in future releases.
  
  
• For a workaround, please follow these steps to manually update the NTP configuration on the SDDC Manager appliance.
  
  
  • Workaround: Manual NTP Configuration:
    
    
    1. Log in to the SDDC Manager appliance as the vcf user via SSH.
       
       
    2. Switch to the root user: su -
       
       
    3. Open the /etc/ntp.conf file in a text editor:
       vi /etc/ntp.conf
       
       
    4. Locate the server entries and update them with the correct NTP server IP addresses.
       
       
    5. Save and close the file.
       
       
    6. Restart the NTP daemon to apply the changes:
       systemctl restart ntpd
       
       
    7. Verify the synchronization status:
       ntpq -p
       
       
    8. Return to the SDDC Manager UI and trigger a Global Health Check to verify that the ENTITY_NTP_NOT_SYNCED alert is cleared.

Additional Information

Error: Failed to validate NTP configuration due to ESXi DNS mismatch

Host commission in SDDC fails with "SDDC Manager is not in sync with NTP server"