Gentoo, init scripts & NTPSec

[Frank Nicholas]

Gentoo’s typical NTP package (ntp-4.2.8_p7) has 2 x init scripts (OpenRC based - https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:OpenRC):
ntp-client
ntpd

ntp-client sets the systems date at startup and exits.  It uses ntpdate to do this.  Without ntp-client in the default run level, ntpd will not start on a system who’s clock is too far out of sync (especially SoC boards like the Raspberry Pi’s that don’t have a RTC).

I started with a fresh git clone from NTPSec.  I compiled & installed.  I was surprised to see no init scripts - is that to be expected?  Are init scripts typically managed only by the Linux distro (not my experience with some other projects), or has NTPSec just not gone there yet?

I copied the init scripts from a Gentoo system that is running the typical NTP package, ntp-4.2.8_p7.  I updated the ntpd init script to use "/usr/local/sbin/ntpd” - this was successful in starting NTPSec's ntpd.

I made no changes to the ntp-client startup script (it doesn’t specify an executable path in the init script - only an executable name in the config file, in case you want to change it to use ntpd).  I saw from the NTPSec site (https://www.ntpsec.org/removal-plan.html) that ntpdate was deprecated and a wrapper was supplied. I discovered that “./waf install” does not install ntpdate.  Is this by design, or an over sight (I saw ntpdate in the util directory)?

For testing, I copied util/ntpdate to /usr/local/sbin.  The Gentoo init script for ntp-client worked perfectly, with no modifications.  I then modified the “/etc/conf.d/ntp-client” config file to point NTPCLIENT_CMD to ntpd.  The init script worked ok in this manner, also.

Thanks,
Frank
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