VM date/time synchronization with host

[Chris Murphy]

What is the correct behavior of date/time synchronization between host and a VM?

It seems to me each VM having chronyd running isn't necessary, that the host should have the correct UTC time and then pass that off to each VM's clock. Yes or no? I find it hard to believe a dozen or hundreds of VMs individually using chronyd to set their times.

What I'm seeing in VBox 4.2.0 is it creates a VM with correct UTC matched to host. But if that VM is paused or if the host computer is put to sleep, when the VM resumes its date/time is wrong and never updated. And then subsequently I get weird messages from chronyd where it's not synchronizing. chronyd is running. But journalctl is reporting:

chronyd: Can't synchronise: no majority

I think the first case is a VBox bug or deficiency. And the second case is one or more confused time servers, but that's just a guess.

Chris Murphy