[Mageia-dev] Why ntpdate still there?

[Colin Guthrie]

'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



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Colin Guthrie
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http://colin.guthr.ie/

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