Bug#289267: [pkg-ntp-maintainers] Bug#289267: [debian-ntp] Bug#289267: ntp: NTP on ifup

[Tore Anderson]

* Kurt Roeckx

> -b means always step, -B means slew, and you asked for -B before?

  Ranked in order of preference (as defaults, at least):

  1) No gratuitous clock adjustments whatsoever (no if-up.d script)
  2) No gratuitous clock stepping whatsoever (use of -B)
  3) No gratituous clock stepping unless large offset (default ntpdate)
  4) Gratituous clock stepping (use of -b)

  Ubuntu went with #4 for their Dapper release.

> It now seems to be using -b if it's a static interfacce.

  Do you mean "a interface not using DHCP" here?  If so I wonder what
 that has got to with anything...

> ntpdate shouldn't be changing time when ntpd is running, and ntp
> doesn't get restrarted by default, so I guess I'm still not getting
> it.

  If the scripts turns into a no-op when ntpd is installed I have no
 objection to it (although I really think -b isn't called for in any
 case).  That didn't happen in Ubuntu though...  All I'm asking is that
 if you implement something similar in Debian, please be more careful
 then they were.  Clock stepping is _dangerous_ and should IMO be done
 only as the system is brought up, and especially not as a result of
 fiddling with something that one would think is completely unrelated
 to system time, such as network interfaces.

Regards
-- 
Tore Anderson