Time differences in the REDDOXX appliance grow bigger and bigger.
In a virtual appliance, the time is not synchronising correctly.
There are two possible methods for synchronising the time in virtual appliances.
Method 1 - Host Sync
The time synchronisation is done between host and guest system via specific Tools (VMware Tools for vmware appliances, HyperV integration Tools for HyperV appliances).
The client-side tools are automatically installed during the appliance Installation.
The REDDOXX appliance should not have time servers configured if using this method.
The Host Needs to be configured for time Synchronisation (This is to be done in the settings for the virtual machine)
Method 2 - Time Server
The Time is synchronised by using the ntp servers configured in the appliance.
You should not use the Default NTP Time Server.
It is better to use the corporate Time Servers (for example the Domain Controller)
If the appliance has time drift, you should check which of the 2 methods described above is used and if switching to the other method is already fixing the issue.
Depending on the virtualisation host, REDDOXX recommends the following settings:
HyperV (Method 1 - Host Sync)
Disable the configured NTP Servers in the Appliance and use Host Synchronisation via Integration Tools
Host Synchronisation is enabled by default in HyperV
Microsoft recommends using the integration Tools instead for time Synchronisation (Method 1) so that a snapshot does not cause the time to drift away.
But they also note, that the Time Synchronisation via the host will not be performed if the time is already drifting more than 5 seconds.
VMware (Method 2 - Time Server)
Configure the NTP Servers in the Appliance and do not use Host Synchronisation
Host Synchronisation is disabled by default in VMware
XEN (Method 2 - Time Server)
Configure the NTP Servers in the Appliance and do not use Host Synchronisation
Host Synchronisation is disabled by default in XEN
Using both methods together is not recommended and might be the cause of the Synchronisation Problem (as the client is getting ntp replys from the configured ntp servers as well as the host at the same time)
Especially for using Method 2 it is highly recommended not to use the Public Timeservers as they could refuse ntp replies if the query interval is exceeded.
Further Information can be found in the admin manual and the network time - diagnose