Description of problem: timedatectl shows systemd-timesyncd.service active: yes but actually it is masked and only chronyd.service is active. I've hit this at least once. I don't like my tools lying to me, it wastes time when troubleshooting. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): systemd-234-9.fc27.x86_64 timedatex-0.5-2.fc27.x86_64 How reproducible: always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Install Fedora 27 Workstation 2. timedatectl 3. systemctl status chronyd systemd-timesyncd Actual results: $ timedatectl Local time: Wed 2018-02-28 20:06:42 GMT Universal time: Wed 2018-02-28 20:06:42 UTC RTC time: Wed 2018-02-28 20:06:42 Time zone: Europe/London (GMT, +0000) System clock synchronized: yes systemd-timesyncd.service active: yes RTC in local TZ: no $ systemctl status chronyd systemd-timesyncd ● chronyd.service - NTP client/server Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/chronyd.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled) Active: active (running) since Wed 2018-02-28 20:05:55 GMT; 54s ago Docs: man:chronyd(8) man:chrony.conf(5) Process: 630 ExecStartPost=/usr/libexec/chrony-helper update-daemon (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS) Process: 624 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/chronyd $OPTIONS (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS) Main PID: 627 (chronyd) Tasks: 1 (limit: 4703) Memory: 2.4M CGroup: /system.slice/chronyd.service └─627 /usr/sbin/chronyd ● systemd-timesyncd.service - Network Time Synchronization Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-timesyncd.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled) Active: inactive (dead) Docs: man:systemd-timesyncd.service(8) Expected results: no lies, only consistency Additional info: I expect you're fed up of this already. I have a specific idea in mind, maybe you'd not considered this effect so you hadn't thought of the need for it. timedatex should not really be masking systemd-timedated.service either. systemd warns about masks at boot time, like: rsync.service: Cannot add dependency job, ignoring: Unit rsync.service is masked If we are too timid to patch the systemd package to behave as required for Fedora (Workstation, Server, whatever) we should still be patching it, just enough to allow a clean override. I personally don't need gnome to support disabling ntp from the gui. But clearly there's a _reason_ we ended up with timedatex in Fedora, and hence this icky bug. Also I'm assuming that upstream rejects any patch to improve this, after they deliberately switched to only work with systemd-timesyncd.service, updated the message text and man page, and simply told us that setting the "NTP" property will no longer be considered a valid use case for their api. ## Use the alternatives system There is a well-known override mechanism (originally from Debian, naturally) - https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Alternatives_system. This should be applied to change timedatectl to fix the message text, /usr/share/man/man1/timedatectl.1 to fix the documentation, and also to /lib/systemd/system/systemd-timedated.service. Generally systemd is happy to have unit files being symlinks, so I think this would not be a problem. Notice that e.g. `systemctl status systemd-timedated` will provide a small hint, in several places you will be able to see timedatex instead of systemd-timedated. ## or split systemd-timedated into a subpackage of systemd That said, it might be simpler to engineer systemd-timedated as a separate subpackage instead. AIUI, the RPMs would naturally conflict, if they both provided /usr/bin/timedatectl etc.
It seems the output of timedatectl changed not that long ago with this commit: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/commit/3ec530a1890925efe347f739917dd4078c1b1942 Let's ask the Fedora systemd maintainers if this is something what could be fixed downstream or upstream. To me it looks like a bug that timedatectl assumes the service providing the org.freedesktop.timedate1 interface is the one shipped with systemd. Would it be possible to change the "systemd-timesyncd.service active" string with something more generic like "Time synchronization service active"? The man page of timedatectl could explain that it communicates over D-Bus, usually with the systemd-timedated service, which controls systemd-timesyncd, but it does not have to be always the case. If this does not work, timedatex could probably provide a replacement for timedatectl in addition to systemd-timedated, but some changes in the systemd packaging would be needed to avoid the file conflicts in /usr/bin and /usr/share/man/man1 as suggested in the comment #0.
Frankly, I'd prefer to go back, and make timedatectl again manage multiple ntp daemons (in the sense of enabling/disabling one of the installed implementations). The approach that timedatectl manages just systemd-timesyncd has been mostly a source of bugs and a constant annoyance to users. I haven't looked at the details, so I don't have an opinion whether it makes sense to bring ntp-units.d back [1], or some different mechanism should be implemented and what role timedatex should play. [1] commit removing ntp-units.d: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/commit/b72ddf0f4f
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This got solved actually as suggested above and the changes in behaviour were reverted. If the output is still confusing in any way, please open a new bug.