[pkg-ntp-maintainers] Bug#542602: ntp: Should ntp update clock before or after the syslog collector starts?

[Petter Reinholdtsen]

[Kurt Roeckx]
> Note that if you're trying to use ntpd to set the clock, it might
> take several minutes before it first attempts to correct the clock,
> so just depending on ntp is probably not going to give you the
> behaviour you want.

I know.

> Using something like rdate or ntpdate assumes the network is up and
> you can reach a suitable ntp server, which isn't always the case.
> You do not want to halt the whole boot process waiting for a timeout
> of that, which is why we started running it in the background.  So
> depending on something like that is still not going to give you the
> behaviour you want.

With concurrent booting, only those init.d scripts needing $time will
wait for it, which might not be all.  But I understand this could be a
problem if the NTP server isn't local on the network.  When I used
ntpdate, it always returned quickly, so I never have experienced this
problem myself.

> I think the hardware RTC is good enough for normal cases.  The
> kernel writes the RTC when ntpd is running.  Assuming the hardware
> properly keeps time while it's powered off, it's good enough.
> 
> I also don't think it's useful to not log the message that ntpd
> generates while it's starting.

If I understand you correctly, you believe Debian should keep the
non-LSB compliant behavoiur of $time?  Is that correct?

Happy hacking,
-- 
Petter Reinholdtsen