I have found that the following patch works better. It avoids slow-to-stop ntpd child processes messing the whole thing up, especially during a restart.
diff -u ntp-4.2.0a+stable/debian/ntp-server.init.d ntp-4.2.0a+stable/debian/ntp-server.init.d --- ntp-4.2.0a+stable/debian/ntp-server.init.d +++ ntp-4.2.0a+stable/debian/ntp-server.init.d @@ -15,20 +15,20 @@ case "$1" in start) echo -n "Starting NTP server: ntpd" - start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile /var/run/ntpd.pid --exec /usr/sbin/ntpd -- -p /var/run/ntpd.pid -u $UGID + start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --oknodo --pidfile /var/run/ntpd.pid --exec /usr/sbin/ntpd -- -p /var/run/ntpd.pid -u $UGID echo "." ;; stop) echo -n "Stopping NTP server: ntpd" - start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile /var/run/ntpd.pid + start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --exec /usr/sbin/ntpd --retry 60 echo "." rm -f /var/run/ntpd.pid ;; restart|force-reload) echo -n "Restarting NTP server: ntpd... " - start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile /var/run/ntpd.pid + start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --exec /usr/sbin/ntpd --retry 60 sleep 2 - start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --exec /usr/sbin/ntpd -- -p /var/run/ntpd.pid -u $UGID + start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --oknodo --pidfile /var/run/ntpd.pid --exec /usr/sbin/ntpd -- -p /var/run/ntpd.pid -u $UGID echo "done." ;; reload)
