Linux: concerns over systemd [OT]

Wed Oct 22 21:33:52 UTC 2014

On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 3:48 PM,  <Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu> wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Oct 2014 19:35:51 -0000, David Ford said:
>
>> into a common bus. not everything in systemd is a requirement to run it.
>> just because a unit is offered for dhcp or ntp, doesn't mean you are
>> required to use it.
>
> Actually, systemd 216 will cram systemd-timesyncd down your throat even
> if you had ntpd installed.

Oh really?  From my Fedora 21 (alpha) system at work:

# rpm -q systemd
systemd-216-5.fc21.x86_64
# systemctl status systemd-timesyncd.service
● systemd-timesyncd.service - Network Time Synchronization
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-timesyncd.service; disabled)
   Active: inactive (dead)
     Docs: man:systemd-timesyncd.service(8)
# systemctl status ntpd.service
● ntpd.service - Network Time Service
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/ntpd.service; enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Thu 2014-10-16 16:06:22 CDT; 6 days ago
 Main PID: 1438 (ntpd)
   CGroup: /system.slice/ntpd.service
           └─1438 /usr/sbin/ntpd -u ntp:ntp -g

I'm not sure what NTP service is installed by default in Fedora 21+
(which will ship with systemd 216), as this system has been upgraded
from previous Fedora versions, but as you can see it's perfectly
possible to run ntpd on a system that used systemd 216.

> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1136905
> https://mail.gnome.org/archives/distributor-list/2014-September/msg00002.html
>
> Lennart's attitude was pretty much "why would anybody want to run ntpd
> when they have our SNTP implementation":

A vast oversimplification of Lennart's point.  Basically you left off
"if you really want to run chronyd or ntpd service go right ahead,
we're just not going to have code in systemd to do that for you".

> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2014-August/022537.html
>
> There's been similar issues with their dhcp.

The "bug" here is really timedatectl (a component of systemd) isn't
going to manage chronyd or ntpd (third party packages), and that made
a Gnome control panel (which used timedatectl under the hood) report
that network time synchronization wasn't enabled.

If you don't want timedated then it's perfectly possible to disable
timedated and use something else.  If someone cares enough, I'm sure
that the Gnome control panel will get updated so that I can manage
chronyd or ntpd itself.

-- 
Jeff Ollie