[pkg-ntp-maintainers] Bug#514319: ntpdate takes ages to fail in the case of DNS problems

[martin f krafft]

Package: ntpdate
Version: 1:4.2.4p4+dfsg-8
Severity: normal

bell:~# date; /usr/sbin/ntpdate -s -b mayen.favey.ch; date
Fri Feb  6 09:50:53 CET 2009
Error : Temporary failure in name resolution
Fri Feb  6 09:52:13 CET 2009

bell:~# date; /usr/sbin/ntpdate -s -b mayen.favey.ch swisstime.ethz.ch; date
Fri Feb  6 09:52:18 CET 2009
Error : Temporary failure in name resolution
Error : Temporary failure in name resolution
Fri Feb  6 09:54:58 CET 2009

ntpdate takes 80s to time out when the DNS server does not respond.
It also processes all files in serial, which can incur massive
delays. In conjunction with the lockfile bug I reported earlier,
this can cause system start to take almost 10 minutes.

At the very least, ntpdate should process name resolution in
parallel. It should probably also fail faster.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 5.0
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-1-amd64 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_GB, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages ntpdate depends on:
ii  libc6                         2.7-18     GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcap1                       1:1.10-14  support for getting/setting POSIX.
ii  libssl0.9.8                   0.9.8g-15  SSL shared libraries
ii  netbase                       4.34       Basic TCP/IP networking system

Versions of packages ntpdate recommends:
ii  lockfile-progs                0.1.11-0.1 Programs for locking and unlocking

ntpdate suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information


-- 
 .''`.   martin f. krafft <madduck at d.o>      Related projects:
: :'  :  proud Debian developer               http://debiansystem.info
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  `-  Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems
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