[pkg-ntp-maintainers] Bug#744324: ntp reaches an inconsistent state while started during boot, but runs fine once (manually) restarted

[Loïc REVEST]

Package: ntp
Version: 1:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-2
Severity: normal

Hi !

Each time I reboot my server, ntp seems to get started in such a way it "appears" to work..but in fact it doesn't. Below an excerpt of /var/log/daemon:

Apr 10 12:56:33 <servername> ntpd[2554]: ntpd 4.2.6p5 at 1.2349-o Sat May 12 09:54:55 UTC 2012 (1)
Apr 10 12:56:33 <servername> ntpd[2570]: proto: precision = 0.257 usec
Apr 10 12:56:33 <servername> ntpd[2570]: Listen and drop on 0 v4wildcard 0.0.0.0 UDP 123
Apr 10 12:56:33 <servername> ntpd[2570]: Listen and drop on 1 v6wildcard :: UDP 123
Apr 10 12:56:33 <servername> ntpd[2570]: Listen normally on 2 lo 127.0.0.1 UDP 123
Apr 10 12:56:33 <servername> ntpd[2570]: Listen normally on 3 br0 192.168.0.101 UDP 123
Apr 10 12:56:33 <servername> ntpd[2570]: Listen normally on 4 br0 fe80::6ef0:49ff:fe71:7b2f UDP 123
Apr 10 12:56:33 <servername> ntpd[2570]: Listen normally on 5 lo ::1 UDP 123
Apr 10 12:56:33 <servername> ntpd[2570]: peers refreshed

And command "/etc/init.d/ntp status" returns " : [ ok ] NTP server is running.

However, all clients trying to sync with my ntp server gets a (hereafter an example from an OpenBSD 5.4 /var/log/daemon):

bad peer from pool <server_IP> (<server_IP>)
reply from <server_IP>: not synced (alarm), next query XXXXs

and if I try to get the status of ntp on my server with ntpq -p, I get a "No association ID's returned" message, nothing else...

As soon as I restart the ntp daemon (doing nothing more than /etc/init.d/ntp restart), everything is fine again...:

Apr 12 20:12:16 <servername> ntpd[2570]: ntpd exiting on signal 15 <== restart requested
Apr 12 20:12:18 <servername> ntpd[24203]: ntpd 4.2.6p5 at 1.2349-o Sat May 12 09:54:55 UTC 2012 (1)
Apr 12 20:12:18 <servername> ntpd[24204]: proto: precision = 0.270 usec
Apr 12 20:12:18 <servername> ntpd[24204]: Listen and drop on 0 v4wildcard 0.0.0.0 UDP 123
Apr 12 20:12:18 <servername> ntpd[24204]: Listen and drop on 1 v6wildcard :: UDP 123
Apr 12 20:12:18 <servername> ntpd[24204]: Listen normally on 2 lo 127.0.0.1 UDP 123
Apr 12 20:12:18 <servername> ntpd[24204]: Listen normally on 3 br0 192.168.0.101 UDP 123
Apr 12 20:12:18 <servername> ntpd[24204]: Listen normally on 4 vnet3 fe80::fc54:ff:fec9:e556 UDP 123
Apr 12 20:12:18 <servername> ntpd[24204]: Listen normally on 5 vnet2 fe80::fc54:ff:fec9:e552 UDP 123
Apr 12 20:12:18 <servername> ntpd[24204]: Listen normally on 6 br0 fe80::6ef0:49ff:fe71:7b2f UDP 123
Apr 12 20:12:18 <servername> ntpd[24204]: Listen normally on 7 vnet1 fe80::fc54:ff:fec9:e555 UDP 123
Apr 12 20:12:18 <servername> ntpd[24204]: Listen normally on 8 vnet0 fe80::fc54:ff:fec9:e553 UDP 123
Apr 12 20:12:18 <servername> ntpd[24204]: Listen normally on 9 vnet4 fe80::fc54:ff:fec9:e554 UDP 123
Apr 12 20:12:18 <servername> ntpd[24204]: Listen normally on 10 lo ::1 UDP 123
Apr 12 20:12:18 <servername> ntpd[24204]: peers refreshed

And clients are syncing without any problem...

Do you have any idea where this could come from ?

Regards,

Loïc REVEST

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.4
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/3 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages ntp depends on:
ii  adduser      3.113+nmu3
ii  dpkg         1.16.12
ii  libc6        2.13-38+deb7u1
ii  libcap2      1:2.22-1.2
ii  libedit2     2.11-20080614-5
ii  libopts25    1:5.12-0.1
ii  libssl1.0.0  1.0.1e-2+deb7u6
ii  lsb-base     4.1+Debian8+deb7u1
ii  netbase      5.0

Versions of packages ntp recommends:
ii  perl  5.14.2-21+deb7u1

Versions of packages ntp suggests:
ii  ntp-doc  1:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-2

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/ntp.conf changed:
driftfile /var/lib/ntp/ntp.drift
statsdir /var/log/ntpstats/
statistics loopstats peerstats clockstats
filegen loopstats file loopstats type day enable
filegen peerstats file peerstats type day enable
filegen clockstats file clockstats type day enable
server 0.fr.pool.ntp.org iburst 
server 1.fr.pool.ntp.org iburst 
server 2.fr.pool.ntp.org iburst 
server 3.fr.pool.ntp.org iburst 
restrict -4 default kod notrap nomodify nopeer noquery
restrict -6 default kod notrap nomodify nopeer noquery
restrict 127.0.0.1
restrict ::1


-- no debconf information