[pkg-ntp-maintainers] Bug#242629: ntptrace manpage is STILL wrong after 4 years
JP Vossen
jp at jpsdomain.org
Mon Jul 21 21:48:17 UTC 2008
Package: ntp
Version: all?
Severity: annoying
PROBLEM: The manpage for ntptrace is wrong (looks like its for the old
C version instead of the new Perl version of 'ntptrace')
SOLUTION: Fix/rewrite the manpage (maybe from upstream)
NOTE: This is an upstream bug that claims to have been fixed
(https://support.ntp.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=419), but various old
versions of the incorrect docs are still out there, including
http://www.ece.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/html/ntptrace.html and all of the
aforementioned Linux distros.
DETAILS:
I've tested this in Debian Etch and Lenny, and Ubuntu Gutsy and Hardy.
All are wrong in the same way, which is pretty sad given how old the
original report is and the fact that it is not rocket science to fix a
man page. (Though adding -h or --help to the actual script would be
nice too.)
Manpage says:
ntptrace [ -vdn ] [ -r retries ] [ -t timeout ] [ server ]
Actual /usr/bin/ntptrace Perl script says:
getopts('nm:');
E.g.:
# ntptrace -v
Unknown option: v
[...]
# ntptrace -d
Unknown option: d
[...]
# ntptrace -r 4
Unknown option: r
[...]
# ntptrace -t 4
Unknown option: t
[...]
So, the actual script supports *only* a -n flag and -m option. From
looking at the code, -n turns off DNS name lookups, and -m specifies the
max_hosts (default 99). That code is ugly too, I'd have written:
$dodns = $opt_n ? '0' : '1'; # -n turns off DNS lookups else on
$max_hosts = $opt_m || '99'; # -m <max hosts> else 99
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