[pkg-ntp-maintainers] Bug#790328: ntp spontaneously stops

[Slaven Rezic]

Package: ntp
Version: 1:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-7
Severity: important

Dear Maintainer,

the ntp daemon stops every couple of days without any traces in the logs.
If this happens, then strace attached to ntpd would report the following
lines:

01:37:15.767895 sendto(19, "#\3\6\357\0\0\t\17\1\336\231\365\201F\204!\3319\215\376\315\360\224\354\3319\265\356n\251\"\224"..., 48, 0, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(123), sin_addr=inet_addr("84.200.81.98")}, 16) = 48 <0.000235>
01:37:15.768242 clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, {1435448235, 768291844}) = 0 <0.000038>
01:37:15.768383 select(23, [16 17 18 19 20 21 22], NULL, NULL, NULL) = 1 (in [19]) <0.033360>
01:37:15.801917 clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, {1435448235, 802037278}) = 0 <0.000069>
01:37:15.802134 select(23, [16 17 18 19 20 21 22], NULL, NULL, {0, 0}) = 1 (in [19], left {0, 0}) <0.000034>
01:37:15.802279 recvmsg(19, {msg_name(16)={sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(123), sin_addr=inet_addr("84.200.81.98")}, msg_iov(1)=[{"$\4\6\352\0\0\3\335\0\0\26\5\220L\7\"\3319\262~\335M&\356\3319\262+\304\216\347y"..., 2120}], msg_controllen=32, {cmsg_len=32, cmsg_level=SOL_SOCKET, cmsg_type=0x1d /* SCM_??? */, ...}, msg_flags=0}, 0) = 48 <0.000233>
01:37:15.802634 recvmsg(19, 0x7ffcd5cfabc0, 0) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable) <0.000029>
01:37:15.802779 clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, {1435448235, 802826991}) = 0 <0.000038>
01:37:15.802919 clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, {1435448235, 802965135}) = 0 <0.000060>
01:37:15.803102 stat("/var/NTP/peerstats", 0x7ffcd5cfb280) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) <0.000033>
01:37:15.803233 open("/var/NTP/peerstats.20150627", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_APPEND, 0666) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) <0.000034>
01:37:15.803390 clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, {1435448235, 803438572}) = 0 <0.000038>
01:37:15.818321 clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, {1435448235, 818601967}) = 0 <0.000263>
01:37:15.819631 exit_group(-1)          = ?
01:37:15.833564 +++ exited with 255 +++

Note that this is a trace from today, 2015-06-28, but the log lists a
filename containing yesterday's date (peerstats.20150627). Also, /var/NTP
is a directory which should not exist on a debian system.

Regards,
    Slaven

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 8.0
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.16.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages ntp depends on:
ii  adduser      3.113+nmu3
ii  dpkg         1.17.25
ii  libc6        2.19-18
ii  libcap2      1:2.24-8
ii  libedit2     3.1-20140620-2
ii  libopts25    1:5.18.4-3
ii  libssl1.0.0  1.0.1k-3
ii  lsb-base     4.1+Debian13+nmu1
ii  netbase      5.3

Versions of packages ntp recommends:
ii  perl  5.20.2-3

Versions of packages ntp suggests:
pn  ntp-doc  <none>

-- no debconf information