Problem description

NTPD doesn't start on a virtual machine:

service ntpd status
ntpd dead but pid
file
exists
service ntpd restart
Shutting down ntpd:      [FAILED]
Starting ntpd:           [ OK ]
tail
/var/log/messages
... cap_set_proc() failed to drop root privileges: Operation not permitted

Resolution

vi /etc/sysconfig/ntpd

locate the following line and comment it out:

# OPTIONS="-u ntp:ntp -p /var/run/ntpd.pid -g"

Now the restart will work:

service ntpd start