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

[Dmitrijs Ledkovs]

On 7 December 2013 15:09, Thiemo Nagel <thiemo.nagel at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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?
>

Servers that rarely (re)configure network or boot, can also setup cron
to call to ntpdate or install an NTP client daemon when they are first
configured.

Regards,

Dmitrijs.



> 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.