Bug 1735584 - retire timedatex in F31+
Summary: retire timedatex in F31+
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: timedatex
Version: 31
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Miroslav Lichvar
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks: 1550259
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2019-08-01 06:26 UTC by Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek
Modified: 2019-10-24 12:49 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
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Environment:
Last Closed: 2019-09-24 15:55:26 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


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Description Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek 2019-08-01 06:26:44 UTC
With systemd-243~rc1 in rawhide, which supports the original ntp-units.d/ syntax, the raison d'être for timedatex is gone. The is no problem with it being present, but I think it'd be nicer to have one package less.

If you are OK with that, I'd add "Obsoletes:timedatex<0.7, Provides:timedatex=0.6" in the next build, and than we timedatex can be retired.

timedatex is not Required by any package afaics, but comps requires timedatex, so the Provides in systemd would be necessary. I'll submit a PR to remove timedatex from comps too.

Comment 1 Miroslav Lichvar 2019-08-01 08:39:27 UTC
The chrony and ntp packages have "Recommends: timedatex". Those should probably be removed.

I tried systemd-timedated from the latest systemd package and with all three NTP providers installed. There seem to be few issues. It would be nice to fix them before retiring timedatex to avoid regressions.

"timedatectl set-ntp true" actives a wrong service (by priority) if it is already enabled. It doesn't enable the correct service and it doesn't disable the rest.

timedatectl shows "System clock synchronized: no" when chronyd is running without "rtcsync". IIRC this is just a different interpretation of the data returned by adjtimex(). I'll submit a patch.

Comment 2 Miroslav Lichvar 2019-08-01 10:55:27 UTC
PR for the issue with reported synchronization status: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/13245

Comment 3 Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek 2019-08-04 09:54:22 UTC
> The chrony and ntp packages have "Recommends: timedatex". Those should probably be removed.

They'll be harmless if timedatex is not available, so we can just remove them whenever.
I'll file PRs when the other stuff is done.

> timedatectl shows "System clock synchronized: no" when chronyd is running without "rtcsync". IIRC this is just a different interpretation of the data returned by adjtimex(). I'll submit a patch.

Thanks. It is merged and in systemd-243-rc1.

> "timedatectl set-ntp true" actives a wrong service (by priority) if it is already enabled. It doesn't enable the correct service and it doesn't disable the rest.

That seems to be by design. I think that the idea is that if a service was already enabled previously,
then we want to keep stability, and not start a different unit just because a different package was
installed. If the user wants to do that, they should do 'set-ntp off, set-ntp on'.
Is there some strong reason to prefer different behaviour?

(I wrote some patches to add more verbose logging to timesyncd, so that it's easier to see what is going on
and why. I'll submit that as PR later.)

Comment 4 Miroslav Lichvar 2019-08-05 07:56:07 UTC
(In reply to Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek from comment #3)
> That seems to be by design. I think that the idea is that if a service was
> already enabled previously,
> then we want to keep stability, and not start a different unit just because
> a different package was
> installed. If the user wants to do that, they should do 'set-ntp off,
> set-ntp on'.
> Is there some strong reason to prefer different behaviour?

Yes, I think that's confusing behavior. Setting ntp off and on should give the same result as just setting it on. There should be no stickiness (hidden state). It should behave like running an ansible role.

The other service might have been enabled because no other was installed at the time. If I install a new NTP service with a higher priority, setting ntp on should enable and start the new service, and disable all other. Also, if for some reason multiple services are enabled, after setting ntp on there should be only one enabled to avoid systemd selecting between them randomly on the next boot.

Comment 5 Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek 2019-08-05 11:08:08 UTC
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/13265

Comment 6 Miroslav Lichvar 2019-08-05 11:49:52 UTC
Thanks for your work on this.

Comment 7 Ben Cotton 2019-08-13 17:00:13 UTC
This bug appears to have been reported against 'rawhide' during the Fedora 31 development cycle.
Changing version to '31'.

Comment 8 Ben Cotton 2019-08-13 18:33:28 UTC
This bug appears to have been reported against 'rawhide' during the Fedora 31 development cycle.
Changing version to 31.

Comment 9 Fedora Update System 2019-09-22 08:05:02 UTC
FEDORA-2019-3d6348341f has been submitted as an update to Fedora 31. https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2019-3d6348341f

Comment 10 Miroslav Lichvar 2019-09-23 10:48:55 UTC
Doesn't timedatex need to be removed from comps?

Comment 11 Adam Williamson 2019-09-23 19:11:39 UTC
yes, and also, timedatex should be retired, if it's obsolete. It is not yet retired from F31 or F32. I'm sending PRs for comps. This has broken Server install on Rawhide.

Comment 12 Adam Williamson 2019-09-23 19:17:05 UTC
https://pagure.io/fedora-comps/pull-request/413

Comment 13 Fedora Update System 2019-09-24 01:23:19 UTC
systemd-243-2.gitfab6f01.fc31 has been pushed to the Fedora 31 testing repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
See https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Updates_Testing for
instructions on how to install test updates.
You can provide feedback for this update here: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2019-3d6348341f

Comment 14 Miroslav Lichvar 2019-09-24 08:19:46 UTC
timedatex has been retired in the F31 and master branches.

Comment 15 Fedora Update System 2019-09-24 15:55:26 UTC
systemd-243-2.gitfab6f01.fc31 has been pushed to the Fedora 31 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.


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