[pkg-ntp-maintainers] Bug#436029: Bug#436029: ntp: unable to bind to wildcard socket address 0.0.0.0 - another process may be running - EXITING

[Peter Eisentraut]

Kurt Roeckx wrote:
> I'm getting this message sometimes in my daemon.log file during
> startup:

> The problem seems to be that ntpdate is (still) running.

It seems to me that there are two safe ways to fix this:

1. If ntpd is installed, ntpdate shouldn't background.  This is somewhat 
irrational, a step back to the old behavior.  (Of course having ntpdate 
and ntpd installed together might be considered legacy.)

2. Use an interlock file (say, /var/lock/ntp).  This seems reasonable, 
because running more than one copy of ntpdate or ntpd at the same time 
is hardly useful.  There are other cases where this might be useful, 
such as bringing up more than one interface at the "same" time, with 
DHCP events interfering, and so on.