Re: FreeBSD 6.0-RC1 available

On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 01:39:10PM -0400, Joshua Coombs wrote:
> 
> "Scott Long" <scottl_at_samsco.org> wrote in message 
> news:434BEC96.4050801_at_samsco.org...
> >Joshua Coombs wrote:
> >
> >>Given that we're in the RC stage, is it too late to get a PR 
> >>stuffed in to correct ntpd/ntpdate behavior in /etc/rc.d?
> >>
> >>Joshua Coombs
> >>
> >
> >Depends on the kind of problem that you are seeing.  Any details?
> >
> >Scott
> 
> Two issues I spotted.
> 
> First, ntpdate is still being used, despite it being marked as 
> depreciated for quite some time.  The preferred replacement is to call 
> ntpd with the -q switch.  This causes ntpd to match ntpdate's 
> behavior, it sets the time, and then exits with a status code 
> indicating success or failure.
> 
> Second, when ntpdate, or what ever is set in ntpdate_program is 
> called, there is an IP appended to the end of the arguments, which is 
> not controlled by ntpdate_flags.  This means you cannot setup ntpd -q 
> to be used in place of ntpdate without editing the ntpdate rc.d script 
> or creating a new one, a regression from 4.x's setup.
> 
> I see some effort was put into the new ntpdate rc.d script, having it 
> pull potential servers from /etc/ntp.conf rather than require the user 
> specify one in rc.conf using ntpdate_flags.  ntpd called with -q uses 
> the ntp.conf server entries automatically, so the extra work by the 
> rc.d script isn't required if we switch to ntpd -q in place of 
> ntpdate.
> 
> I was going to work up a tweaked ntpdate rc.d script that included a 
> new option, ntpdate_use_ntpd, that when set, would use the preferred 
> practice of calling ntpd -q after verifying a valid ntp.conf exists. 
> If one isn't present, I was going to have it throw a warning, and 
> reference an example conf using pool.ntp.org servers to get baseline 
> time established.  The ntpd rc.d script would receive the same check, 
> the example conf would lock ntpd down such that it would only operate 
> as a client for the local machine, and not act as a server for 
> external hosts, or respond to external ntp query/command/conf 
> requests.
> 
> Unfortunately, I'm getting into this rather late, I just moved my 386 
> to 6.0b5 this weekend, hence my tardiness discovering ntpdate still in 
> use in later releases of FreeBSD.  I would like to see the correct 
> behavior implemented for release, but if I'm beyond the deadline for 
> this level of change, I'll accept that and work on making it the norm 
> for 6.1.

Since this is a matter of mostly pedantic correctness, I can't see
risking the release on these changes.

-- Brooks

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