I've noticed over the last year or so occasional updates have been made to /etc/ntp.conf. Because I've tried to optimise my server list to use local servers, I've missed these changes. During the upgrade I get the option to accept the new version of /etc/ntp.conf or to keep my current version, so I kept the old, not wanting to have to go through my server list again.
But I think some of the non-server changes to /etc/ntp.conf must have been important, and in fact I eventually reached the point where ntp plain failed to work, e.g. Feb 6 13:48:53 pug ntpd_initres[5745]: ntpd returns a permission denied error! So I purged and reinstalled ntp to get the new ntp.conf, reset my servers, it's all fine again at the moment (I think). I think it must be a relatively common configuration, to want to define your own servers but otherwise leave other ntp.conf settings at their default values. It would therefore make sense if the server list could be read in from a separate file, /etc/ntp.servers say. This could be done either as an #include mechanism reading /etc/ntp.conf (bug #370332 says this does not yet exist), or by the Debian postinst merging a /etc/ntp.settings and /etc/ntp.servers to create a unified /etc/ntp.conf (not so hard to do, right?), or by having the ntp code read servers from a server file instead of /etc/ntp.conf (probably too fiddly compared with introducing an #include mechanism). The advantage would be a greatly improved ease of upgrading the general config settings, while maintaining the same list of servers. I was going to raise a new bug about this, but saw that Bug#370332 addresses similar concerns, so I'm adding my comments here instead. Thanks, Drew -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
