[pkg-ntp-maintainers] Bug#428241: ntpd -d?

[Dan Jacobson]

Package: ntp
Version: 1:4.2.4p0+dfsg-1
Severity: wishlist
File: /usr/share/man/man8/ntpd.8.gz

The man page does not reflect the current options! E.g.,
$ man ntpd|grep -- \ -d
       -d     Specify debugging mode.  This flag  may  occur  multiple  times,
$ /usr/sbin/ntpd -d
/usr/sbin/ntpd: illegal option -- d
ntpd - NTP daemon program - Ver. 4.2.4p0...

Why repeat twice?:
The following option preset mechanisms are supported:
 - reading file /root/.ntprc
 - reading file /root/.ntprc
 - examining environment variables named NTPD_*

Give a usage example of:
   -v Str var            make ARG an ntp variable (RW)
   -V Str dvar           make ARG an ntp variable (RW|DEF)

e.g.,
$ h=stdtime.gov.tw
$ ntpd -c /dev/null -v "server tick.$h time.$h tock.$h"

with no examples, one does not know if that is valid.
And mention RW|DEF etc. meaning, on the man page too.


(We see in the docs that ntpdate can be emulated by ntpd -q, but we
don't know how to write the equivalent to
h=stdtime.gov.tw; ntpdate tick.$h time.$h tock.$h)

Also, In syslog one sees
Jun 10 11:00:53 jidanni2 ntpd[3894]: no reply; clock not set
but it forgot to mention that it was exiting too. (seen with -q).

Also the docs should give examples for different types of users:
Jacobson is a nurd who lives on an Island of Afternoon Lightning.
Only after he finishes his bug reports does he power up his ADSL modem.
Therefore he chooses do disable ntpd on boot via rcconf, an instead
just does ntpd -q in /etc/ppp/ip-up.d/... as he doesn't like daemons
up all day...

Winston is a dweeb at the National Center of Time....

Holmes is a Spam Professional who needs to send spam with correct time
stamps...

P.S., /usr/share/doc/ntp-doc/html/scripts/*.txt are actually .js, not
.txt, if one looks at their contents...

And remember the newline:
$ /usr/sbin/ntpd 2>&1|od -c
0000000   m   u   s   t       b   e       r   u   n       a   s       r
0000020   o   o   t   ,       n   o   t       u   i   d       1   0   0
0000040   0
Makes a big deal for some of us with fancy $PS1's.