How do I Add a Precision Clock Device to a Virtual Machine
A Precision Clock device is a virtual clock device that provides a virtual machine with access to the system time of the primary ESXi host.
- To ensure that the Precision Clock device provides the guest operating system of a virtual machine with accurate time, synchronize the primary ESXi host to use Network Time Protocol (NTP) or Precision Time Protocol (PTP). For information how to configure the host time synchronization, see thevSphere Single Host Management - VMware Host Clientdocumentation.
- Power off the virtual machine.
- Verify that the virtual machine hardware is of version 17.
- Required privileges:
To synchronize the guest operating system of a virtual machine with the host in an efficient manner, add a Precision Clock device to the virtual machine. For information on how to use the Precision Clock device as a reference clock for time synchronization of the supported guest operating system, see the
vCenter Server and Host Management
documentation.- Right-click a virtual machine from the vSphere Client inventory and selectEdit Settings.
- On theVirtual Hardwaretab, clickAdd New Device, and from the drop-down menu selectPrecision Clock.The Precision Clock device appears in theVirtual Hardwaredevices list.
- Select the time synchronization protocol and clickOK.OptionDescriptionAnyThe ESXi host time synchronization type has no limitations.NTPYou can power on the virtual machine on an ESXi host that is configured with NTP time synchronization.PTPYou can power on the virtual machine on an ESXi host that is configured with PTP time synchronization.