On 2023-03-27 11:15:20, Miroslav Lichvar wrote: > On Thu, 23 Mar 2023 12:12:04 +0000 Richard Lewis > <[email protected]> wrote: >> Presumably the release notes should also say that most people should >> consider systemd-timesyncd as this is priority:standard (since at >> least buster, but i dont remember seeing this in release notes then)? >> - i assume the idea is that if you dont have any special needs beyond >> "set the clock" should use systemd-timesyncd, And people who need >> extra features (like running their own ntp server) should install >> ntpsec / chrony / opennntpd ? > > Recommending timesyncd as an NTP client to replace ntpd would not be a > good idea, especially if you consider the default configuration using > servers from pool.ntp.org. > > The pool is very robust as a whole, but individual servers cannot be > relied on. They are run by volunteers. Some are well maintained, some > are not. Occasionally, servers drift away or step to a distant past or > future, e.g. due to GPS firmware bugs. The pool monitoring system > detects such servers and quickly removes them from the pool DNS, but > simple clients like timesyncd cannot recover from that. Once they got > the address from DNS, they will follow the server for as long as it > claims to be synchronized, no matter how wrong it is. A full-featured > NTP client is needed to detect and replace falsetickers. With > timesyncd the only option is to restart the service when you notice > the clock is wrong. I've seen many times users complaining about that > and getting this advice over the years. > > timesyncd needs to be configured with a reliable server to work well. > Canonical maintains their own NTP servers and uses them by default in > Ubuntu. That makes senses. Debian uses pool.ntp.org, so it should > recommend a proper NTP client for a reliable service.
It seems to me this should be reported as a bug against the systemd-timesyncd package, at the very least. Right now this is completely empty: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?pkg=systemd-timesyncd;dist=unstable Now I agree that timesyncd might not be the best default NTP server: my vote goes for chrony, personnally. But if we're going to object to it, it should be at least properly documented in that package's bug list... (To be fair, there *were* bugs reported agains the package before: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?archive=both;dist=unstable;package=systemd-timesyncd ... just not this specific one.) a. -- Si l'image donne l'illusion de savoir C'est que l'adage pretend que pour croire, L'important ne serait que de voir - Lofofora
