My server clock / date and time is wrong or drifts

First, determine your instance type.

Select options from your Manage Servers screen and look at 'Virtualization type' under Advanced. If it is set to 'Fully Virtualized' follow the HVM instructions below. If it is set to use a PV-GRUB or PyGRUB boot loader use the PV instructions.

For Fully Virtualized (HVM) instances

To resolve this issue, you can change the clocksource on your system. First determine the current clocksource:

To find your current clocksource

cat /sys//devices/system/clocksource/clocksource0/current_clocksource
tsc

We can see that our current clocksource is tsc.

To see available clocksources

 
cat /sys/devices/system/clocksource/clocksource0/available_clocksource
jiffies pit tsc

We can see that we have jiffies, pit, and tsc available as clocksources.

To change your clocksource, append clocksource=jiffies to your grub.conf kernel line. The sample grub entry would look like this:

title CentOS (2.6.18-194.3.1.el5xen)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-194.3.1.el5xen ro root=LABEL=/ console=xvc console=tty clocksource=jiffies
        initrd /initrd-2.6.18-194.3.1.el5xen.img

You can now reboot and then

cat /sys/devices/system/clocksource/clocksource0/current_clocksource
jiffies

And it shows us jiffies. If it doesn't, then the kernel clocksource line is not correct.

Test and see if drift continues. Depending on your kernel and system pit or jiffies typically resolves any clock drift.

For our para-virtualized (PV) instances

If your server date is incorrect or doesn't "stick" -- ie, you issue the date command and the date resets, do the following as root:

echo 1 > /proc/sys/xen/independent_wallclock

You can then set the date again. Wait a few moments and confirm the date is correct.

In order to ensure the setting sticks on boot, you should also issue a:

echo "xen.independent_wallclock = 1" >> /etc/sysctl.conf

Notes

You can also overwrite /etc/localtime with the correct zone from /usr/share/zoneinfo on your system to set your local time zone.
On Gentoo, you need to add echo 1 > /proc/sys/xen/independent_wallclock to the /etc/conf.d/local.start file.
You should always run ntpd on your system, as well as use ntpdate to set the time on boot. A combination of ntpd+ntpdate+the options in this article will ensure that your time is always accurate.

For our para-virtualized "Cloud Kernel" instances

If you are using a "Cloud Kernel" (Set under options) of your dashboard, you can change your clocksource by modifying the clocksource= line under boot paramaters. If you are facing a clock drift issue, try changing the clocksource= to xen, or a different clocksource if xen is set. Note, once you have made this change you must do a full shutdown of your instance, wait for its state to change to down and then do a start.

For x64 CentOS HVM instances that are "jumping ahead"

Add notsc divider=10 to your kernel config

Example:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
#          root (hd0,0)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title CentOS (2.6.18-164.6.1.el5)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-164.6.1.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 hda=noprobe hdb=noprobe notsc divider=10
	initrd /initrd-2.6.18-164.6.1.el5.img
title CentOS (2.6.18-164.el5)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-164.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
	initrd /initrd-2.6.18-164.el5.img

For 32 CentOS HVM instances that are "jumping ahead"

Add divider=10 clocksource=acpi_pm to your kernel config

Example:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
#          root (hd0,0)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title CentOS (2.6.18-164.6.1.el5)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-164.6.1.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 hda=noprobe hdb=noprobe notsc divider=10 clocksource=acpi_pm
	initrd /initrd-2.6.18-164.6.1.el5.img
title CentOS (2.6.18-164.el5)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-164.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
	initrd /initrd-2.6.18-164.el5.img

Tweak NTPD

Edit your /etc/ntp.conf as follows

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
tinker panic 0
restrict 127.0.0.1
restrict default kod nomodify notrap
server 0.vmware.pool.ntp.org
server 1.vmware.pool.ntp.org
server 2.vmware.pool.ntp.org
driftfile /var/lib/ntp/drift

##############
### It is also important NOT to use the local clock as a time source, often referred to as the Undisciplined Local Clock. NTP has a tendency to fall back to this in preference to the remote  servers when there is a large amount of time drift. If you see these two options, comment them as below:
#server 127.127.1.0
#fudge 127.127.1.0 stratum 10
##############

Once you have changed the kernel clocksource you need to reboot your machine.

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