touch-packages team mailing list archive

[Maarten <mthibaut@xxxxxxxxx>]

There has been no movment on the Debian bug report in about 6 months,
and they appear to view ntpdate as legacy. SO I think we're faced with a
decision:

1) Use ntpd -g instead, i.e. stop installing the ntpdate command and use
the ntp package instead and fix startup options for NTP to include "-g"
in preseed

2) Use the proposed preseed change by Dann.

I feel #2 is better because if Debian is going to remove ntpdate at a
later stage, they will include "-g" for ntpd by default, at which time
we can simply remove our fix again. If we use #1 we might break things
once Debian goes this route.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1257082

Title:
  MAAS does not use NTP servers specified in DHCPD options

Status in MAAS:
  Invalid
Status in isc-dhcp package in Ubuntu:
  Invalid
Status in ntp package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in isc-dhcp source package in Precise:
  New
Status in ntp source package in Precise:
  In Progress
Status in isc-dhcp source package in Trusty:
  New
Status in ntp source package in Trusty:
  In Progress
Status in ntp package in Debian:
  New

Bug description:
  [Impact]

  MAAS-deployed systems *that do not have persistent RTCs* (unusual)
  have difficulty with time and authentication, generally making these
  nodes unusable.

  [Workaround]

  See comment #8.

  [Original Description]

  I have tried setting up NTP servers as DHCP options to MAAS nodes
  because I am behind a proxy here at work that cannot contact
  ntp.ubuntu.com. Here is the top of the dhcpd.conf file on on my MAAS
  head node, maas01:

  root@maas01:/etc/dhcp# less dhcpd.conf
  default-lease-time 600;
  max-lease-time 7200;

  subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.0.0 {
    option domain-name "mgmt";
    option domain-name-servers 192.168.255.254;
    option routers 192.168.255.254;

    pool {
      range 192.168.0.1 192.168.255.253;
      deny unknown-clients;
    }
  }

  subnet 10.255.0.0 netmask 255.255.0.0 {
    option domain-name "maas";
    option domain-name-servers 10.255.0.1;
    option routers 10.255.0.1;
    option ntp-servers 172.31.22.1, 172.31.23.1, 172.31.20.104;
    next-server 10.255.0.1;

    pool {
      range 10.255.1.0 10.255.255.254;
      deny unknown-clients;
    }
  }

  I have also verified the parameter is being sent to a client’s DHCP
  lease:

  ubuntu@sled204n0:/var$ cat /var/lib/dhcp/dhclient.eth0.leases
  lease {
    interface "eth0";
    fixed-address 10.255.4.44;
    option subnet-mask 255.255.0.0;
    option routers 10.255.0.1;
    option dhcp-lease-time 600;
    option dhcp-message-type 5;
    option domain-name-servers 10.255.0.1;
    option dhcp-server-identifier 10.255.0.1;
    option ntp-servers 172.31.22.1,172.31.23.1,172.31.20.104;
    option domain-name "maas";
    renew 4 2000/01/06 19:40:51;
    rebind 4 2000/01/06 19:40:51;
    expire 4 2000/01/06 19:40:51;
  }

  Even so, the date on the target node is still incorrect.

  ubuntu@sled204n0:/etc$ date
  Thu Jan  6 19:52:29 UTC 2000

  The ntpdate defaults are the following (unchanged from MAAS defaults):

  ubuntu@sled204n0:/etc$ cat /etc/default/ntpdate
  # The settings in this file are used by the program ntpdate-debian, but not
  # by the upstream program ntpdate.

  # Set to "yes" to take the server list from /etc/ntp.conf, from package ntp,
  # so you only have to keep it in one place.
  NTPDATE_USE_NTP_CONF=yes

  # List of NTP servers to use  (Separate multiple servers with spaces.)
  # Not used if NTPDATE_USE_NTP_CONF is yes.
  NTPSERVERS="ntp.ubuntu.com"

  # Additional options to pass to ntpdate
  NTPOPTIONS=""

  And the DHCP generated NTP server file is correct:

  ubuntu@sled204n0:/etc$ cat /var/lib/ntpdate/default.dhcp
  # NTP server entries received from DHCP server
  NTPSERVERS='172.31.22.1 172.31.23.1 172.31.20.104'

  The culprit seems to be in how ntpdate-debian is programmed. the logic
  ignores /var/lib/ntpdate/default.dhcp if /etc/default/ntpdate sets
  NTPDATE_USE_NTP_CONF=yes (the default).

  After examining the script further my recommendation would be for the
  /etc/dhcp/dhclient-exit-hooks.d/ntpdate to create the file
  /var/lib/ntp/ntp.conf.dhcp. By doing so ntpdate-debian will work
  transparently with /etc/defaults/ntpdate and NTP servers advertised by
  DHCPD.

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------
  (contents of /var/log/maas/* is 125MB in size, will post data from there if requested)

  # dpkg -l '*maas*'|cat
  Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
  | Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
  |/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
  ||/ Name                               Version                                Architecture Description
  +++-==================================-======================================-============-==========================================================================
  ii  maas                               1.3+bzr1461+dfsg-0ubuntu2.2+tay.8      all          Ubuntu MAAS Server
  ii  maas-cli                           1.3+bzr1461+dfsg-0ubuntu2.2+tay.8      all          Ubuntu MAAS Client Tool
  ii  maas-cluster-controller            1.3+bzr1461+dfsg-0ubuntu2.2+tay.8      all          Ubuntu MAAS Cluster Controller
  ii  maas-common                        1.3+bzr1461+dfsg-0ubuntu2.2+tay.8      all          Ubuntu MAAS Server
  un  maas-dhcp                          <none>                                              (no description available)
  un  maas-dns                           <none>                                              (no description available)
  ii  maas-region-controller             1.3+bzr1461+dfsg-0ubuntu2.2+tay.8      all          Ubuntu MAAS Server
  ii  python-django-maas                 1.3+bzr1461+dfsg-0ubuntu2.2+tay.8      all          Ubuntu MAAS Server - (django files)
  ii  python-maas-client                 1.3+bzr1461+dfsg-0ubuntu2.2+tay.8      all          Ubuntu MAAS API Client - (python files)
  ii  python-maas-provisioningserver     1.3+bzr1461+dfsg-0ubuntu2.2+tay.8      all          Ubuntu MAAS Server

  [Test Case]:

  1) Configure a MAAS server to pass via DHCP the following options:
      option ntp-servers your-ntp-server-address.
  2) Boot a new MAAS node that do not have persistent RTC.
  3) Check that the contents of /var/lib/ntpdate/default.dhcp exists after boot and has the correct ntp-servers value.
  3) Check that the `date` is correct according to your DHCP defined ntp-servers.
  4) If the date is correct according to your DHCP defined ntp-servers, the problem is fixed.

  Regression :

  None expected since if NTPDATE_USE_NTP_CONF is set to YES, and some of
  the default ntp.conf files is found that will be used.

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