Closing this issue as it was a debian/control problem in systemd- timesyncd that dropped "Provides: time-daemon" from the package declarations in systemd 253.5-1ubuntu3. This prevented apt resolver in mantic from properly recognizing the conflicts between systemd-timesyncd and ntpsec. So the resolver couldn't determine that it had to remote systemd-timesyncd.
This debian/control issue was fixed in systemd 253.5-1ubuntu4 which is not yet installed in daily mantic builds for cloudimages in lxc. So, this results in an inability of apt to resolve those conflicts on the stale systemd-timesyncd 253.5-1ubuntu3 which is installed in those images. To resolve this conflict prior to cloudimage updates: apt update apt install systemd-timesyncd apt install ntp # now works fine and removes systemd-timesyncd automatically because of the proper Provides: time-daemon ** Changed in: cloud-init (Ubuntu) Status: Triaged => Fix Released ** Also affects: systemd (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New ** Changed in: systemd (Ubuntu) Status: New => Fix Released ** Changed in: cloud-init (Ubuntu) Status: Fix Released => Invalid -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to systemd in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2033926 Title: NTP module broken in mantic Status in cloud-init package in Ubuntu: Invalid Status in systemd package in Ubuntu: Fix Released Bug description: tests/integration_tests/modules/test_ntp_servers.py is failing. With this user data: #cloud-config ntp: ntp_client: ntp servers: - 172.16.15.14 - 172.16.17.18 pools: - 0.cloud-init.mypool - 1.cloud-init.mypool - 172.16.15.15 The apt install of ntp fails in the logs. If I try to install locally, I get: root@cloudinit-0901-195800sev1vrx3:~# apt install ntp Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Reading state information... Done Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. The following information may help to resolve the situation: The following packages have unmet dependencies: ntpsec : Conflicts: time-daemon systemd-timesyncd : Conflicts: time-daemon E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cloud-init/+bug/2033926/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp