Can anyone recommend a free NTP server appliance?

[Silverchenau]

hi, Guys:

Sorry for asking this long and lame stupid question regarding NTP time server issue.

We are planning to get a free NTP appliance in our DMZ so all our esxi can use that as NTP server.

I downloaded NTP (Network Time) Appliance from market and loaded up to DMZ esx.

But it seems the it's using wrong time servers (check the attachment)

I tried to modify ntp.conf to use 0.vmware.pool.ntp.org, but settings are restored to original every time I reboot service.

I do need to find a solution for this time server. Can you recommend any other free time server for esx?

Thanks a lot.

My Vmware blog: http://geeksilverblog.com

[AntonVZhbankov]

Any Linux distrib includes NTP server.

---

MCSA, MCTS Hyper-V, VCP 3/4, VMware vExpert

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[Silverchenau]

Any secured appliance I can use? so I don't need to worry about updating security package for that NTP server.

Thanks

My Vmware blog: http://geeksilverblog.com

[AntonVZhbankov]

Maybe you should consider moving NTP role to core switch instead of VM?

---

MCSA, MCTS Hyper-V, VCP 3/4, VMware vExpert

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[Jackobli]

Any secured appliance I can use? so I don't need to worry about updating security package for that NTP server.

There is software (an appliance is software too), that does not need patches? Haven't heard about such things the last some years.

Any Linux/nix (BSD), locked down and secured through a firewall should do it. I would rather look into the time source for your system and choose a trusted source or even your own clock. There are also recommendations to use a source near you, like your provider's one.

[Silverchenau]

Thank guys for all respond. I managed to find the script which always overwrite the ntp server.

but I am still not able to get NTP via ntpdate command. Anyway, that maybe some issue relates to firewall.

The reason I want to use our own linux version NTP server in the DMZ zone is we can't use our windows server as NTP. We tried, and vmware support tried, and no one seems able to get windows as NTP server for esx. So eventually, we gave up and use local clock.

Now, with this new update(esxi), I want to build a NTP box in the DMZ zone and that's where I am.

I will keep update to you guys. Really appreciate.

My Vmware blog:

[Jackobli]

but I am still not able to get NTP via ntpdate command. Anyway, that maybe some issue relates to firewall.

from the man page:

"The functionality ntpdate offered is now provided by the ntpd daemon itself. If you call ntpd with the command line option -q it will retrieve the current time and set it accordingly."

The program /usr/sbin/sntp offers comparable functionality to ntpdate.

Specifically

sntp -P no -r pool.ntp.org

is equivalent to

ntpdate pool.ntp.org

hth, cheers

[Silverchenau]

Really appreciate everyone's reply with this case.

I have finally resolved issue by installing a Ubuntu 9.04 on my DMZ as NTP server.

Ubuntu 9.04 from Market place can't be loaded into ESX, I'm not quite sure why. It just said VM (invalid).

I downloaded multiple version of Ubuntu and load in ESX 3.5, ESX4, no difference.

Finally, I downloaded a installation ISO and download NTP package.

This is closure of this case.

Thanks again

My Vmware blog: http://geeksilverblog.com