[Mageia-dev] Why ntpdate still there?

Mon Feb 11 15:55:50 CET 2013

'Twas brillig, and Pierre Jarillon at 11/02/13 14:23 did gyre and gimble:
+> Le lundi 11 février 2013 13:18:23, Colin Guthrie a écrit :
+>> So ntpdate as a service is just a one-shot thing, it happens once at
+>> boot to ensure the clocks are properly set and then ntpd takes over for
+>> the rest of the time that machine stays up.
+>>
+>> As far as I'm aware, there is nothing integrated into crontab regarding
+>> ntpdate, but please feel free to correct me on that one.
+> 
+> Yes, this was the old system. I am not an expert in ntp, but I have read 
+> carefully http://ntp.org few years ago and I return on it now and then.
+> I can miss something... I am not the truth!
+> 
+> On the web site http://www.ntp.org/  ->Implementation Documentation
+> http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/html/ntpdate.html said:
+> Disclaimer: The functionality of this program is now available in the ntpd 
+> program. See the -q command line option in the ntpd - Network Time Protocol 
+> (NTP) daemon page. After a suitable period of mourning, the ntpdate program is 
+> to be retired from this distribution
+> 
+> And http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/html/ntpd.html and the man tell us:
+> 
+> -q
+> Exit the ntpd just after the first time the clock is set. This behavior mimics 
+> that of the ntpdate program, which is to be retired. The -g and -x options can 
+> be used with this option. Note: The kernel time discipline is disabled with 
+> this option.
+> -g
+> Normally, ntpd exits with a message to the system log if the offset exceeds the 
+> panic threshold, which is 1000 s by default. This option allows the time to be 
+> set to any value without restriction; however, this can happen only once. If 
+> the threshold is exceeded after that, ntpd will exit with a message to the 
+> system log. This option can be used with the -q and -x options. See the tinker 
+> command for other options.
+> 
+> The same options are set in the man of ntp.
+> 
+> IMO, ntpdate should be replaced with: ntpd -gq
+
+Yup that would be fine.
+
+> I don't understand why ntpdate is listed as an active daemon in drakxservices.
+
+This is simply because of the fact that drakxservices doesn't really
+grok the kind of granularity you want here.
+
+See the direct output from e.g. "systemctl status ntpdate.service" vs.
+"systemctl status ntpd.service" (hint: compare "active (exited)" vs
+"active (running)")
+
+For the former, it's a "oneshot" and as it has been run and it ran
+successfully, it's is thus considered "active".
+
+Really we should teach drakxservices to present that properly: e.g. show
+it as "Completed" or something, rather than "Active"
+
+> In /etc/sysconfig/ntpd :
+> - Mageia 1 : OPTIONS="-u ntp:ntp -p /var/run/ntpd.pid"
+> - Mageia 2 : OPTIONS="-g"
+> - Mageia 3 : OPTIONS="-g"
+> 
+> Then it seems that ntpdate is no longer useful since Mageia 2.
+
+Yes indeed. It seems the -g option passed there makes the separate
+ntpdate service obsolete. It basically gives ntpd a one-chance option to
+do a big jump, which is basically what we were achieving with that
+double unit setup.
+
+I'll kill off the ntpdate stuff.
+
+Many thanks for poking into this :)
+
+Col
+
+
+
+-- 
+
+Colin Guthrie
+colin(at)mageia.org
+http://colin.guthr.ie/
+
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+  Tribalogic Limited http://www.tribalogic.net/
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+