[chrony-users] Request: Add an optional timeout option for 'chronyd -q ...'

[Lonnie Abelbeck <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

HI,

We are in the process of moving from 'ntp' to 'chrony' for our open source project.

In a matter of a few hours, I have made the conversion, including testing by booting without a network connection, restart chrony every 10 seconds for a 100+ times, etc .

I am very impressed with 'chrony' !

Though we have one issue uncovered during testing.

First, a little background, previously we used this sequence at boot time to set a big jump, then maintain the clock:
----
first="$(awk '/^server / { print $2; nextfile; }' /etc/ntpd.conf)"
....
sntp -S -t4 $first
....
ntpd -g -c /etc/ntpd.conf
----

This is how we are doing it now with chrony:
----
first="$(awk '/^(server|pool) / { print $2; nextfile; }' /etc/chrony.conf)"
....
chronyd -q -u ntp "server $first iburst"
....
chronyd -u ntp
----

What we would like is a "-t timeout" option to be used with "chronyd -q ...." just like sntp's -t option.  I have seen cases where "chronyd -q ...." hangs without a timeout.

The last thing we want to for chronyd to hang at boot time, and it can without such a timeout option, here are some logs...

2016-11-30T18:50:24Z chronyd version 2.4.1 starting (+CMDMON +NTP +REFCLOCK +RTC +PRIVDROP -SCFILTER -SECHASH +ASYNCDNS -IPV6 -DEBUG)
2016-11-30T18:50:24Z Initial frequency -17.442 ppm
2016-11-30T18:50:26Z Received KoD RATE from 138.68.46.177, burst sampling stopped
(Hung for minutes or longer, a ^C was require to continue)

2016-11-30T18:43:30Z chronyd version 2.4.1 starting (+CMDMON +NTP +REFCLOCK +RTC +PRIVDROP -SCFILTER -SECHASH +ASYNCDNS -IPV6 -DEBUG)
2016-11-30T18:43:30Z Initial frequency -15.827 ppm
2016-11-30T18:43:37Z Received KoD RATE from 67.4.147.175, burst sampling stopped
2016-11-30T18:47:57Z No suitable source for synchronisation
(Worked)

2016-11-30T19:11:01Z chronyd version 2.4.1 starting (+CMDMON +NTP +REFCLOCK +RTC +PRIVDROP -SCFILTER -SECHASH +ASYNCDNS -IPV6 -DEBUG)
2016-11-30T19:11:01Z Initial frequency -17.331 ppm
2016-11-30T19:11:01Z Received KoD RATE from 50.116.52.97, burst sampling stopped
(Hung for minutes or longer, a ^C was require to continue)

Does adding a "-t timeout" option to be used with "chronyd -q ..." sound reasonable ?  We would probably use -t 8 (in seconds) for the upper bound.

Thanks,
Lonnie





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