[pkg-ntp-maintainers] Bug#513620: Bug#513620: ntp: Please check for a loopback interface

[Kurt Roeckx]

On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 01:19:03PM -0600, Vince Mulhollon wrote:
> Package: ntp
> Version: 1:4.2.4p4+dfsg-8
> Severity: wishlist
> 
> If you do not have a loopback interface configured then ntp will work and
> sync your time, but ntpq will error out and fail to connect to the running
> ntp server.
> 
> The only other common symptom of a missing loopback that I could find 
> was that portmap / statd blows up (assuming you even have that installed
> to run NFS).  NFS isn't your thing, I'm just including it to show that
> ntpq is one of the few things that won't work without a loopback and 
> nothing in Debian provides any error.

How do you expect "ntpq" to connect to localhost when you didn't
configure it?  Note that the manpage clearly states that
localhost is the default.

If you really want to use ntpq without localhost configured,
run ntpq with the ip/hostname.

And I'm pretty sure that there are alot of things that break
if you do not have localhost configured.  But I don't know
many that can run from the initrd.


Kurt