[pkg-ntp-maintainers] Bug#436029: ntp: unable to bind to wildcard socket address 0.0.0.0 - another process may be running - EXITING

[Kurt Roeckx]

Package: ntp
Version: 1:4.2.2+dfsg.2-2
Severity: important

I'm getting this message sometimes in my daemon.log file during startup:
Jul 22 17:09:21 intrepid ntpd[3507]: ntpd 4.2.4p0 at 1.1472-o Thu May 10
15:34:51 UTC 2007 (1)
Jul 22 17:09:21 intrepid ntpd[3508]: precision = 1.000 usec
Jul 22 17:09:21 intrepid ntpd[3508]: unable to bind to wildcard socket
address 0.0.0.0 - another process may be running - EXITING


The problem seems to be that ntpdate is (still) running.

It seems that in case of succesful boots, ntpdate sets the time just
before ntpd gets started, in case of failure just it's still running.

So there seems to be some kind of race condition in the boot ordering.

/etc/network/if-up.d/ntpdate looks like:
/usr/sbin/ntpdate-debian -s $OPTS 2>/dev/null &

And that & is probably causing me the problems.

That would be this change:
  * Run ntpdate from ifup in the background (closes: #321759, #375280,
      #382543)


Kurt