VxRail: VxVerify – ntp_reach: NTP not reachable from vCenter (Bug)

Another Day and another VxVerify Challenge, this time we will talk about the above mentioned Failure. VxVerify checks the NTP Connection between vCenter and NTP Server by using SSH, if this connection cannot be established, VxVerify will display a corresponding message.

#========================#======#=========#====================================================================#==============#
|  Hostname / Category   |Status  Dell_KB |  Warnings or Failures, unless tests Passed                         ; Product S.N. |
#========================#======#=========#====================================================================#==============#
| vCenter_root           | Failure  296462| ntp_reach: NTP not reachable from vCenter                                         |

However, this may be a VxVerify bug. You can check whether the NTP connection from vCenter and VxRail Manager is working. To do this, log in to both VMs as root and check the current NTP connection using the following command and notice the value at Reach:

root@vxrail: ntpq -p or root@vcenter: ntpq -p

# Bad output would be:
     remote       refid           st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter
==============================================================================
 ntp_server01  .INIT.             16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000   0.000
 ntp_server02  .INIT.             16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000   0.000

# Good output would be:
     remote      refid            st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter
==============================================================================
ntp_server01    192.53.103.108     3 u    6  128  377    0.132    1.341   0.275
ntp_server02    192.25.102.121     3 u   32  128  377    0.115    1.432   0.290

If you see the value 377, then your NTP connection is working properly, but it is a VxVerify bug. If you see 0, then check the vCenter VxRail Plugin / VAMI or VxRail API to make sure your NTP IPs are correct. Let’s continue with the bug fix on the vCenter. Either you take the full risk and ignore the warning, since you have ensured that your NTP is working, or you fix it by switching the vCenter to the BASH shell. To do this, log in to the vCenter via SSH and execute the following command:

chsh -s /bin/bash root

Then check the NTP server again.

ntpq -p

With a value of 377, you can run VxVerify again and everything should be green:

See also follwoing sources:

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/319670/toggling-the-vcenter-server-appliance-de.html

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000082029/vxrail-failed-to-pre-check-virtual-machine-vmware-vcenter-server-platform-services-controller-qdamack-meets-upgrade-requirements-caused-by-ntp-issue

That’s it from this Blog Post, if you have any questions, please use the comment section below. 🙂