[pkg-ntp-maintainers] Bug#542602: Bug#542602: ntp: Should ntp update clock before or after the syslog collector starts?

[Kurt Roeckx]

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 01:10:43PM +0200, Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:
> 
[...]
> 
> Before this issue is resolved, it is impossible to change the
> definition of $time to match the LSB specification:
> 
>   $time	 	
> 
>     the system time has been set, for example by using a network-based
>     time program such as ntp or rdate, or via the hardware Real Time
>     Clock.
> 
> At the moment it only uses the hardware real time clock.

Note that if you're trying to use ntpd to set the clock, it might
take several minutes before it first attempts to correct the
clock, so just depending on ntp is probably not going to give
you the behaviour you want.

Using something like rdate or ntpdate assumes the network is up
and you can reach a suitable ntp server, which isn't always the
case.  You do not want to halt the whole boot process waiting
for a timeout of that, which is why we started running it
in the background.  So depending on something like that is
still not going to give you the behaviour you want.

I think the hardware RTC is good enough for normal cases.  The
kernel writes the RTC when ntpd is running.  Assuming the hardware
properly keeps time while it's powered off, it's good enough.

I also don't think it's useful to not log the message
that ntpd generates while it's starting.


Kurt