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Patch: ntpdate option -p deprecated

list Brian Scott
Mon, 12 Feb 2024 18:32:18 +1100
Message-Id: <user-4b36bc491546@xymon.invalid>

The -p 1 option is still desirable for standard ntpd. The default is to do 4 probes which is overkill for xymon.

I have just checked a fresh install of ntpsec from source and can't see ntpdate being installed. Found this on the ntpsec site under Security Improvements:

  * The deprecated and vulnerability-prone ntpdate program has been
    replaced with a shell wrapper around ntpdig. Its -e and -p options
    are not implemented. It is no longer documented, but can be found in
    the attic/ directory of the source distribution.

I notice that in the script the behaviour when it finds the -p option is to simply warn and ignore it:

p) echo "ntpdate: -p is no longer supported." >&2;;

So it's just a neatness thing. The script is undocumented (debian may have pinched their man page from standard ntp) and unlikely to ever be updated.

Not sure where this leaves us. I know others had similar problems when distros moved to chrony for ntp. Maybe we need a more generalised approach to different ntp implementations going forward.

Cheers,

Brian Scott

On 12/2/2024 1:14 am, Roland Rosenfeld wrote:
Hi!

In Debian ntpdate from ntpsec package throws a warning that "-p is no
longer supported".  So it may be a good idea to remove the "-p 1" from
NTPDATEOPTS="-u -q -p 1"                        # Standard options to ntpdate
in xymond/etcfiles/xymonserver.cfg.DIST.

The attached patch solves this issue.

Greetings
Roland