Description of problem: Our ntp servers only work with authentication keys. This stops ntpdate working properly on startup. We therefore have to manually hack /etc/init.d/ntpd to allow ntpdate to work properly on startup. There is no way to handle this situation in the present startup script which simply has: /usr/sbin/ntpdate $dropstr -s -b $tickers 2>/dev/null >/dev/null Could either the startup scripts examine the $ntpconf file for not just the server's IP but also maybe the optional key directive afterwards and pass this to ntpdate. Or a nastier way to simply allow an extra parameter to be passed from /etc/sysconfig/ntpd eg /etc/sysconfig/ntpd: # Drop root to id 'ntp:ntp' by default. OPTIONS="-u ntp:ntp -p /var/run/ntpd.pid" # Set to 'yes' to sync hw clock after successful ntpdate. SYNC_HWCLOCK=no NTPDATEOPTIONS="-a 11 -k /etc/ntp/keys" /etc/init.d/ntpd: /usr/sbin/ntpdate $dropstr $NTPDATEOPTIONS -s -b $tickers
Yes, this feature would be useful and I plan to implement it in devel. However, it is not likely to be addressed in forthcoming updates for RHEL4. The primary objectives of update releases are to enable new hardware platform support and to resolve critical defects. If this issue is important to you, please contact Red Hat Support.
This issue does affect us but we can work around it in a grotty way, I'll ask support if they'll consider it.
*** Bug 245410 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on therefore solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2008-0678.html