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

[Thiemo Nagel]

Of course, they can. Yet, it would be nice to have a default that
works in all situations without user (or admin) intervention.

Best,
Thiemo

On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 5:10 PM, Dmitrijs Ledkovs <xnox at debian.org> wrote:
> 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.