# Timezone issue



## michael_n (Dec 8, 2014)

Hello all,

I have been using Linux for years but I am new to FreeBSD.

I have set up a few VMs but am having an issue with the time on one of them. I set it for EST in the US but it is showing as five hours ahead. I tried running `ntpd -q` but to no avail. I re did the time zone a few times with `tzsetup`, still no joy. I added the following to my rc.conf file and rebooted, no joy:


```
ntpd_enable="YES"
ntpdate_enable="YES"
```

I replaced the given servers in ntp.conf with the following, no joy:


```
server 0.north-america.pool.ntp.org
server 1.north-america.pool.ntp.org
server 2.north-america.pool.ntp.org
server 3.north-america.pool.ntp.org
```

Last thing I tried was disabling the setting in VM Ware to sync time from host but that yielded to change as well. I am tempted to just nuke it and start over but I'd like to know what is going on here. Any suggestions would be very appreciated.

Thanks, Mike


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## Oko (Dec 8, 2014)

Let me guess. You live in Central Time zone? FIve hours is the difference between your time zone and Universal Coordinate Time (UTC) which is roughly equal to Greenwich London. You also run Windows as your primary OS.


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## michael_n (Dec 8, 2014)

Negative. I do live in an eastern time zone state and my host is a Mac.


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## Oko (Dec 8, 2014)

I am not much of a MAC user but I would not be surprised that they switched to local time as the system time. That would be my first guess. I use only KVM in production so I am not familiar with the virtualization technology you are using. Sorry for the noise.


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## J65nko (Dec 8, 2014)

During the install you are asked whether the clock of your computer is set to local time or UTC. If you answered wrongly you will have a time difference 

I have the following entry in /etc/crontab


```
# Adjust the time zone if the CMOS clock keeps local time, as opposed to
# UTC time.  See adjkerntz(8) for details.
#1,31  0-5  *  *  *  root  adjkerntz -a
@reboot  root  ntpdate -b pool.ntp.org
```

You also could install net/openntpd, the OpenBSD network time daemon, which has privilege separation.


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## michael_n (Dec 11, 2014)

J65nko said:


> During the install you are asked whether the clock of your computer is set to local time or UTC. If you answered wrongly you will have a time difference
> 
> I have the following entry in /etc/crontab
> 
> ...


I think you're right. My concern is why this wasn't corrected with any of the changes I made? I was able to manually set the date with `date` but I feel like it should have sunk up online after the changes were made.


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## gqgunhed (Dec 12, 2014)

Maybe try running `tzsetup` within you virtualized FreeBSD and reset your time zone settings. As J65nko mentioned above try switching "Is this machine's CMOS clock set to UTC?" between Yes and No.
As the (type 2) hypervisor takes the time from the underlying operating system this can be the knob to adjust.


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## joaoluizmf (Jan 24, 2018)

J65nko said:


> During the install you are asked whether the clock of your computer is set to local time or UTC. If you answered wrongly you will have a time difference
> 
> I have the following entry in /etc/crontab
> 
> ...



Thanks! This solved my problem.


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