[pkg-ntp-maintainers] Bug#731594: debian-installer: time synchronisation should be installed by default

[Thiemo Nagel]

Hi Dmitrijs,

thank you for your reply! The proposed solution sounds good, except
for servers which rarely (re)configure their network. Is there another
option that would work for servers, too?

Best,
Thiemo

On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 2:24 PM, Dmitrijs Ledkovs <xnox at debian.org> wrote:
> reassign 731594 ntpdate
> retitle 731594 Please make ntpdate package priority standard
> thanks
>
> On 7 December 2013 10:25, Thiemo Nagel <thiemo.nagel at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Package: debian-installer
>> Severity: normal
>> Tags: d-i
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I think that a modern OS should take care of time synchronisation without
>> requiring user intervention. As far as I can see, Debian doesn't install any
>> kind of NTP client by default. (I'd guess that it falls back behind Mac and
>> Windows in this regard. Even my mobile phone synchronises time automatically.)
>>
>> Thus, I'd suggest to install as part of the base system an NTP package
>> (eg. ntp, openntpd, chrony) configured to act as client only.
>>
>> This issue has already been discussed nine years ago, however I believe that
>> user's expectations have changed through the passage of time and thus a fresh
>> look at the topic may be warranted.
>>
>> http://bugs.debian.org/397649
>>
>
> I fully agree that ntp client should be installed by default. Checking
> dependencies of the available candidates (such that we can see what
> other packages they pull into standard set):
> * ntp - libopts25 (optional)
> * ntpdate - all good
> * openntpd - all good
> * chrony - timelimit (optional)
>
> Nothing too scary.
>
> The other concern raised was people on intermittent and metered
> connections (3G / dial-up), who may not want to have a daemon running
> that can't do anything, nor a daemon that would establish unwanted
> internet connections. To this extend ntpdate is the best package, as
> it is only executed upon network configuration without a long running
> daemon, nor periodic cron job.
>
> To resolve this bug report one of the above packages should become
> priority standard. From d-i point of view, any would do =)
>
> I recommend for ntpdate to become such one. Therefore I am reassigning
> this bug to package "ntpdate" for its maintainer to consider this
> change.
>
> Regards,
>
> Dmitrijs.