slow clock on FreeBSD 7.2 on vmware

[Steve Polyack]

On 12/21/09 09:49, Robert Fitzpatrick wrote:
> On 12/17/2009 4:01 PM, Steve Polyack wrote:
>> On 12/16/09 12:53, Robert Fitzpatrick wrote:
>>>> I run multiple FreeBSD servers inside VMWare and I don't have this
>>>> problem. Are you running VMWare workstation? Or ESX/ESXi?
>>>
>>> I am running VMware Server 2.0...thanks again.
>>
>> I would really recommend switching to VMware ESXi if at all possible. I
>> have a lot of FreeBSD VMs running under ESXi 3.5 and 4.0 that work just
>> great with kern.hz=100 and openntpd.
>
> I loaded ESXi and a FreeBSD 8.0 guest last night and this morning it 
> is still keeping time OK without any changes to loader.conf.
>

I'm trying to test this out now without openntpd, but with kern.hz=100 
still set.  You will definitely want kern.hz=100 or something lower than 
the default of 1000, otherwise your guests will use up a decent portion 
of your hosts CPU time, even when idle.  Try it and see the difference.

>> We actually kept everything running on Linux+VMware Server 1.0 until we
>> could make the switch to ESXi; the VMware Server 2.0 product wasn't
>> reliable for us at all and was a total pain to manage.
>
> I am using vSphere to manage, but I see even the standard version 
> requires licensing in the amount of $795. Is there a free management 
> software, or better yet, a way to manage via Linux? That's definitely 
> something I like about VMware Server, that I can manage via a browser. 
> I have not had any major problems with VMware Server 2.0 all running 
> on CentOS 5.x hosts.
>
ESXi can be managed by the VI (Virtual Infrastructure) Client, which I 
believe is windows-only, vSphere, or even the Remote-CLI and the 
barebones "service console" that can be unlocked.  There is no browser 
management interface.  Performance, however, is much better than VMware 
Server 1.0 and 2.0.

-Steve Polyack