I have (tentatively) solved this problem without installing the VMWare Tools as follows:
1. Modify /boot/grub/grub.conf according to
these instructions from vmware.
I chose to add the following to the end of all of the "kernel" lines in grub.conf:
clock=pmtmr nosmp noapic nolapic2. Create a template fragment to prevent any reference to the misbehaving virtual hardware clock provided by VMWare:
# mkdir -p /etc/e-smith/templates-custom/etc/ntp.conf
# echo \# Disable the local hardware clock > /etc/e-smith/templates-custom/etc/ntp.conf/10localhost3. Setup ntpd to use the north american "pool" servers:
# config setprop ntpd NTPServer north-america.pool.ntp.org
(note: I actually used "config setprop ntpd NTPServer "north-america.pool.ntp.org minpoll 4 maxpoll 8", but only to see how expand-template would handle the "minpoll...." part...)
4. Expand the template and reboot to allow the kernel clock options to kick in:
# expand-template /etc/ntp.conf
# signal-event rebootI'll be back in a few days to report how this worked.