From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Oct 20 22:03:30 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3C52D16A4CE for ; Wed, 20 Oct 2004 22:03:30 +0000 (GMT) Received: from postal1.es.net (postal1.es.net [198.128.3.205]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2465B43D31 for ; Wed, 20 Oct 2004 22:03:30 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from oberman@es.net) Received: from ptavv.es.net ([198.128.4.29]) by postal1.es.net (Postal Node 1) with ESMTP id IBA74465 for ; Wed, 20 Oct 2004 15:03:29 -0700 Received: from ptavv (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ptavv.es.net (Tachyon Server) with ESMTP id 64CE75D04 for ; Wed, 20 Oct 2004 15:03:29 -0700 (PDT) To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 15:03:29 -0700 From: "Kevin Oberman" Message-Id: <20041020220329.64CE75D04@ptavv.es.net> Subject: RCng/NTP Catch-22 X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 22:03:30 -0000 I have run into a messy issue with ntp on a V5 or current system. I have kludged around it, but the problem really needs to be fixed. ntpd uses symlinked devices to talk to the reference clock (if there is one). lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 10 Jul 1 14:36 /dev/pps1 -> /dev/cuaa1 lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 10 Jul 1 14:36 /dev/true1 -> /dev/cuaa1 While I really wish ntpd did not do this, it does and it's in the base system. Since /etc/rc.d/ntpd contains: BEFORE: LOGIN and /etc/rc.d/devfs contains: REQUIRE: LOGIN I don't see a clean way to create the symlinks at boot time. If the devices are not present when ntp starts, it never looks again. I have kludged this by adding the symlinks in the ntpd script, but this is really ugly. There should be a better way of doing it. Ideally, ntp should read the device(s) to use from ntp.conf (and quit overloading the loopback address space while we are at it). Barring this, there needs to be a way of getting th devices created before nptd is started. Any of the RCng folks have any suggestions? -- R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman@es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634