Clock drift is a known behavior in virtualized environments. Because virtual machines share physical hardware, the emulated system clock can gradually lose accuracy compared to real-world time.
The solution is to configure your server to synchronize with an internet time server using NTP (Network Time Protocol).
For Linux servers: Install and configure ntpd or chrony to sync automatically.
For Windows servers: Configure the Windows Time Service to use an internet time source. For best results, set the SpecialPollInterval registry value to 900 (seconds) for more frequent synchronization:
Registry path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\NtpClient
Set SpecialPollInterval to 900 (decimal)
This ensures your server's clock stays within a few milliseconds of the actual time, which is critical for applications that depend on accurate timestamps, certificate validation, and scheduled tasks.