Bug#289267: [pkg-ntp-maintainers] Bug#289267: [debian-ntp] Bug#289267: ntp: NTP on ifup

[Tore Anderson]

* Peter Eisentraut

> The ntpdate README.Debian says:
> 
> ntpdate is run whenever a network interface is brought up.  To adjust
> this behavior, the file /etc/network/if-up.d/ntpdate should be edited.
> 
> That file in turn says:
> 
> # ... Feel free to change this, especially if you regularly
> # bring up new network interfaces.
> 
> If people don't read the documentation, we can't help them.

  Why would you expect me to read the documentation of the ntpdate
 program when it is a completely unrelated command, "ifup", that I am
 running?

  To look at it the opposite way, if I wanted to adjust my clock, I
 would go read the NTP documentation, not the networking documentation.
 And I would certainly not expect the ntpdate invocation to result in an
 ifup being run.

> That said, the ntpdate default configuration is optimized for 
> a "desktop".  On a "server" you would use ntpd anyway, so there is no 
> need for ntpdate.  I think this is a reasonable compromise.

  I agree, but on Ubuntu ntpdate is part of the default server
 installation (the meta package "ubuntu-minimal" depends on it, and it's
 priority important).

  It is more exusable to mimic their behaviour in Debian if the ntpdate
 program isn't installed by default.

-- 
Tore Anderson