[pkg-ntp-maintainers] Bug#483174: ntpdate does not seem to prefer AAAA over A records when resolving host names

[Jochen Antesberger]

Package: ntpdate
Version: 1:4.2.2.p4+dfsg-2
Severity: normal


I use ntpdate on my laptop to synchronise with my own ntpd on another
host. The connection is made through an openVPN tunnel which offers
IPv4 and v6. The hostname is resolved from a bind9 server on the same
host as ntpd, which is authorative for the domain and has the correct
AAAA and A records. IPv6 addresses are globally routeable, IPv4
addresses are private.

I noticed that ntpdate somewhat randomly connects to my ntpd by either
IPv6 or V4, instead of prefering IPv6 when availabe. I guess it just
gets the DNS records in random order and/or selects one randomly. That
is probably desired within one address family (RR records) but it
should keep AAAA and A apart and do the random selection from each
group. IPv6 should be preferred of course to facilitate the
transition, just as it is done by most IPv6 aware applications.

Thanks


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.22
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8 at euro, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 at euro (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages ntpdate depends on:
ii  libc6                  2.3.6.ds1-13etch5 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcap1                1:1.10-14         support for getting/setting POSIX.
ii  libssl0.9.8            0.9.8c-4etch3     SSL shared libraries
ii  netbase                4.29              Basic TCP/IP networking system

ntpdate recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information