ESXi - The service ntpd failed to start

ESXi 7.0 standalone – The service ntpd failed to start

Posted on August 7, 2020

Today I tried to install a new ESXi 7.0 server for my homelab and I bumped into an issue with NTP.
I wanted to make sure this is really a bug, so I’ve used three different ISO’s to install ESXi: (same result)

VMware-VMvisor-Installer-7.0.0-15843807.x86_64
VMware-VMvisor-Installer-7.0b-16324942.x86_64
VMware-VMvisor-Installer-7.0.0-16324942.x86_64-DellEMC_Customized-A02

ESXi 7.0 standalone - The service ntpd failed to start — ESXi 7.0 standalone – The service ntpd failed to start

This tends to happen if you’re using a standalone ESXi host instead of connecting it to a vCenter Server.
Follow these steps to fix the issue:

Configure the time settings via ESXi > System > Time & date
Configure the ESXi firewall
Start the ESXi NTP services
Test the time configuration

Table of Contents

Configure the time settings

Navigate to ESXi > System > Time & Date
Select “Use Network Time Protocol (enable NTP client)”
- NTP service startup policy > Start and stop with host
- NTP servers > nl.pool.ntp.org

Navigate to ESXi time configuration

Configure the ESXi firewall

If you’re still in the services screen, search for the ntpd service and choose the related firewall rule on the right side of your screen: “ntpClient”

If you already left the scren, navigate to ESXi > Networking > Firewall rules > Search ntpClient

Select the firewall rule > Actions > Enable

Start the ESXi NTP services

Navigate to ESXi > Services > ntpd
Select ntpd and choose Start

The result will look like this:

Test the time configuration

Navigate to ESXi > System > Time & Date
Verify if the time mentioned in current date and time is correct
Check if the NTP service status is Running

Alternatively you can use SSH, login and type “date”

The problem “The service ntpd failed to start” is solved now!

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