VMware ESXi 6.5: “Failed – An error occurred during host configuration.” when starting the NTP service

I tried repeating VMware KB: Configuring Network Time Protocol (NTP) on ESX/ESXi hosts using the vSphere Client in ESXi 6.5 using the web-client (the steps are very similar, see [WayBack] How to configure ESXi 6.5 Network Time Protocol (NTP) via Host Client? | ESX Virtualization).

It failed with the non-descriptive “Failed – An error occurred during host configuration.”:

Viewing the details isn’t of much help as you do not get extra information:

	Start Service
	Key	haTask-ha-host-vim.host.ServiceSystem.start-139845177
	Description	Starts the service
	State	Failed – An error occurred during host configuration.
	Errors

The /var/log/hostd.log did not get me further either:

2018-04-28T11:31:48.159Z info hostd[B881B70] [Originator@6876 sub=Vimsvc.TaskManager opID=4a8dc318 user=root] Task Created : haTask-ha-host-vim.host.ServiceSystem.start-139845360
2018-04-28T11:31:48.160Z verbose hostd[B881B70] [Originator@6876 sub=PropertyProvider opID=4a8dc318 user=root] RecordOp ADD: recentTask["haTask-ha-host-vim.host.ServiceSystem.start-139845360"], ha-host. Sent notification immediately.
2018-04-28T11:31:48.160Z verbose hostd[B881B70] [Originator@6876 sub=PropertyProvider opID=4a8dc318 user=root] RecordOp ADD: recentTask["haTask-ha-host-vim.host.ServiceSystem.start-139845360"], ha-taskmgr. Applied change to temp map.
2018-04-28T11:31:48.160Z verbose hostd[B881B70] [Originator@6876 sub=PropertyProvider opID=4a8dc318 user=root] RecordOp ASSIGN: info, haTask-ha-host-vim.host.ServiceSystem.start-139845360. Applied change to temp map.
2018-04-28T11:31:48.160Z info hostd[B881B70] [Originator@6876 sub=SysCommandPosix opID=4a8dc318 user=root] ForkExec(/etc/init.d/ntpd) 205307
2018-04-28T11:31:48.213Z info hostd[B881B70] [Originator@6876 sub=SysCommandPosix opID=4a8dc318 user=root] ForkExec(/etc/init.d/ntpd) 205309
2018-04-28T11:31:48.265Z info hostd[B881B70] [Originator@6876 sub=Default opID=4a8dc318 user=root] AdapterServer caught exception: vim.fault.PlatformConfigFault
2018-04-28T11:31:48.266Z info hostd[B881B70] [Originator@6876 sub=Vimsvc.TaskManager opID=4a8dc318 user=root] Task Completed : haTask-ha-host-vim.host.ServiceSystem.start-139845360 Status error
2018-04-28T11:31:48.266Z verbose hostd[B881B70] [Originator@6876 sub=PropertyProvider opID=4a8dc318 user=root] RecordOp ASSIGN: info, haTask-ha-host-vim.host.ServiceSystem.start-139845360. Applied change to temp map.
2018-04-28T11:31:48.266Z info hostd[B881B70] [Originator@6876 sub=Solo.Vmomi opID=4a8dc318 user=root] Activation [N5Vmomi10ActivationE:0x0c012328] : Invoke done [start] on [vim.host.ServiceSystem:serviceSystem]
2018-04-28T11:31:48.266Z verbose hostd[B881B70] [Originator@6876 sub=Solo.Vmomi opID=4a8dc318 user=root] Arg id:
--> "ntpd"
2018-04-28T11:31:48.266Z info hostd[B881B70] [Originator@6876 sub=Solo.Vmomi opID=4a8dc318 user=root] Throw vim.fault.PlatformConfigFault
2018-04-28T11:31:48.266Z info hostd[B881B70] [Originator@6876 sub=Solo.Vmomi opID=4a8dc318 user=root] Result:
--> (vim.fault.PlatformConfigFault) {
--> faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
--> faultMessage = <unset>,
--> text = ""
--> msg = ""
--> }

This did not reveal any more information, so I started digging:

1. 1. In /etc/init.d/ntpd, via NTPD_CONFIG="/etc/ntp.conf" the /etc/ntp.confis queried:

      ntp_servers=`awk '
                   /^server[ \t]*127.127/ {next}
                   /^(server|peer)/       {
                      if ($2 ~/^-/)       {printf "%s " $3}
                      else                {printf "%s " $2}}
                   ' < ${NTPD_CONFIG}`

   2. This file did not have any servers configured:

      # cat /etc/ntp.conf
      restrict default kod nomodify notrap nopeer noquery
      restrict 127.0.0.1
      driftfile /etc/ntp.drift
      

So it appeared that copy/paste this in the web-environment had not been persisted correctly:

0.pool.ntp.org
1.pool.ntp.org
2.pool.ntp.org
3.pool.ntp.org

I re-did the configuration by typing the correct data in stead of pasting and now everything worked fine: the service started and the config file has servers:

# cat /etc/ntp.conf
restrict default kod nomodify notrap nopeer noquery
restrict 127.0.0.1
server 0.pool.ntp.org
1.pool.ntp.org
2.pool.ntp.org
3.pool.ntp.org
driftfile /etc/ntp.drift

It would be so nice if /etc/init.d/ntpd would show why it performs return 1 and the service start mechanism would reflect that in the errors part of the failure message.

Verifying ntpd got the client information

Two steps:

1. Check if ntpd is running
   

   Bad response (ensure the service is started, and starts with the host, see How to configure ESXi 6.5 Network Time Protocol (NTP) via Host Client? | ESX Virtualization):

   [root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] /etc/init.d/ntpd status
   ntpd is not running

   Good response:

   [root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] /etc/init.d/ntpd status
   ntpd is not running

2. Check if the ntpq can query the ntpd client status. It is is not running, then see step 1. If it is not initialising, then you might have a network problem
   

   Bad response:

   [root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] ntpq -pn
   ntpq: read: Connection refused

   Response while waiting for an ntp refresh:

   [root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] ntpq -pn
        remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter
   ==============================================================================
    149.210.199.182 .INIT.          16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000   0.001

   Good response:

   [root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] ntpq -pn
        remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter
   ==============================================================================
    149.210.199.182 193.79.237.14    2 u   61   64    1    3.423   -0.296   0.001

–jeroen