Re: executing ntpdate on boot - seems it doesn't work


On Feb 17, 2007, at 5:34 PM, Franck Joncourt wrote:

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Rolf Bode-Meyer wrote:
Hi!

Hi,

I currently try to figure out if ntpdate is called on boottime in my
system or not.

It *should* be called when the network interfaces come up (ifup),
therefore the /etc/network/if-up.d/ntpdate is present. And it's indeed
called when I manually call ifup -a after booting--an entry in the
syslog then shows something like "adjust time server ... offset ...".
But I don't see such a syslog entry for boottime, so I fear there's
something wrong. Any ideas what that could be or how to be sure
everything is ok?


If it manually works, maybe you can add more lines to your
/etc/network/if-up/ntpdate file in order to track down where the
probleme comes from.

Try turning on bootlogd (change "No" to "Yes" in /etc/default/ bootlogd). That will copy everything that goes onto the console (from the "S05" point on in rsS.d) into /var/log/boot .





And another oddity: ifup is called by the network script which is
rcS.d/S40networking. So if everything works well, ntpdate sets the
system clock at S40. But *after* that S50hwclock.sh calls hwclock
--hctosys which sets the system clock to the hardware clock.
So doesn't hwclock needs to be called before ntpdate?


According to me you are right, hwclock should be start before ntpdate,
since ntpdate sets the system clock, and as you said, hwclock sets the
hardware clock from the system clock. It would be odd to do it in a
different way. I have checked my rcS.d directory, and I have :
S11hwclock and S40networking.

That's (S11hwclock.sh) where hwclock gets called on my Etch test machine too. I have no S50hwclock.sh on that machine.

But I *do* have S18hwclockfirst.sh *and* S50hwclock in /etc/rcS.d on my Sarge server. So, did you upgrade this machine from Sarge?


Actually, if you don't use dynamic networking (as on a laptop with WiFi and modems and such -- you can't tell where your next internet connection is coming from) then the current recommendation from the NTP maintainers is to use ntp, not ntpdate. The latest ntp included in Etch has the ability to sync the system clock quickly on reboot, thus making ntpdate unnecessary. The upstream NTP development group (Dave Mills et al) would like to have ntpdate go the way of the dodo- bird. The last remaining place where it's got a serious application is on machines with intermittent network connections.

Enjoy!

Rick



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