[pkg-ntp-maintainers] Bug#574335: Bug#574335: ntpd shouldn't be started automatically

[Bruce Cran]

On Wednesday 17 March 2010 20:54:21 Kurt Roeckx wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 01:33:59PM +0000, Bruce Cran wrote:
> > Package: ntp
> > Version: 1:4.2.4p4+dfsg-8lenny3
> > Severity: normal
> >
> > Installing the ntp package results in ntpd being started at the end of
> > the installation. This shouldn't happen because ntpd steps the clock
> > forward or back and breaks certain applications such as dovecot that rely
> > of a stable clock.
> 
> As far as I know, the installer already sets your clock before
> it's doing any installation.  Ntp also doesn't get installed by
> default as far as I know.  So I'm not sure what you think should
> get changed.

I've had my system running for a few months (i.e. I was just installing ntp, 
not the whole system), but today I realised I hadn't got ntp running on it and 
that my clock was probably wrong. I ran "apt-get install ntp" and after 
restarting dovecot when I realised it had stopped got a report that ntpd had 
stepped the time backward 16 seconds. Dovecot hadn't know what to do, so it 
stopped working.  I think it should be up to the user to decide how to 
configure ntpd before it's started.

-- 
Bruce Cran