Hi Christian, >> I'm therefor proposing a complete rewrite >> >> - new package sntp-hooks >> - depends on sntp, ships hooks for ifupdown and possibly others (like >> NetworkManager or systemd-network or whatever Ubuntu is doing now) >> - executes the actual sntp synchronisation non-blocking, possibly with >> a one-shot systemd unit using --no-block when systemd is running >> - make ntpdate depend on sntp-hooks and rm_conffile all installed hooks >> >> So if you don't want hooks you just don't install sntp-hooks. >> >> The package sntp-hooks could additionally ship an /etc/default file to >> change behaviour. >> >> I have attempted to spin up some patches for this lately, but ran out of >> time. Is this something you could agree on Ubuntu-side? > > Hi Bernhard, > first of all thanks for your participation and help! > > Yes - on the isolated view to ntp* I think the proposed changes make sense. > Now that we have sntp (back) I think it makes sense to use it instead, but as > you already outlined that needs some extra work to behave mostly "like > people are used from ntpdate". > > I like the suggestion to make the hooks an extra package. > And yes in Ubuntu (and any system dropping ifup/down down the road I > guess) it will be as in [1] "How can I add pre-up, post-up, etc. hook > scripts?" > Doing that in a new and non enforced package sounds great, for there > always will be >0 people who don't want hooks to run. > > I said "on the isolated view to ntp*" since most of what the ntpdate hooks > provided is covered by systemd-timesyncd these days it is also way less > important in most usual setups. But OTOH that provides some freedom > not being forced to make those new sntp/hooks the total generic swiss > army knife. > > [1]: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Netplan#Frequently-asked_questions
Sorry, I completely dropped the ball on this. I have again looked through all the open bugs and I've come to the conclusion that ntpdate in it's current form is probably impossible to fix. Also I think that >90% of the current ntpdate users have it installed for /usr/bin/ntpdate and run a real ntp daemon for timekeeping purposes. I've therefor proposed in Bug#908286 to just drop the hooks from ntpdate and document this in the release notes for Buster. If we build a new package containing sntp-hooks it should not be pulled in automatically, even for the current ntpdate users. IMO with systemd-timesyncd available and ntpd dealing quite well with changing interfaces and temporarily broken connectivity on startup these days we don't need these triggers anymore. What do you think? Bernhard
