After bringing some CentOS guests from an ESX 3.5 environment to an ESXi 4.1 environment and performing a VMware Tools upgrade, I noticed log messages on the VMs similar to the following:

Nov 12 09:07:18 node01 ntpd[2574]: time reset +175.995101 s

Along with console messages about the cmos clock such as:

time.c can't update cmos clock from 0 to 59

Inspecting the affected VMs, the clock appeared to be losing almost a second each second, despite ntpd being up and running and kernel options set appropriately. Further investigation revealed that “Synchronize guest time with host” had been silently enabled for the guest during the Tools upgrade, contrary to VMware’s Timekeeping best practices.

To be fair, I don’t know how widespread this problem is – it could be particular to CentOS, ESX 3.5 to 4.1 migrations, the fact that the virtual hardware hasn’t yet been upgraded from version 4 to version 7, or even my method of upgrading the tools. However, once you know to look for this issue, the resolution is simple: Disable host time sync. You can do this manually, or, if you use Puppet to manage your Linux VMs, the following manifest snippet will automate this for you (assuming you have a “vmware-tools” Service):

exec { "Disable host time sync":
  onlyif => "/usr/bin/test `/usr/bin/vmware-toolbox-cmd timesync status` = 'Enabled'",
  command => "/usr/bin/vmware-toolbox-cmd timesync disable",
  require => Service["vmware-tools"],
}