conf/144804: ntpd(8) cannot resolve hostnames at system start

[JÁKÓ András]

The following reply was made to PR conf/144804; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: =?utf-8?B?SsOBS8OTIEFuZHLDoXM=?= <jako.andras at eik.bme.hu>
To: bug-followup at FreeBSD.org, wilson.andrew.j at gmail.com
Cc:  
Subject: Re: conf/144804: ntpd(8) cannot resolve hostnames at system start
Date: Sat, 4 May 2013 22:18:54 +0200

 I have a very similar problem on 9-STABLE (built yesterday).
 
 Messages at boot:
 
 May  3 23:31:56 vpn-gw ntpd[715]: ntpd 4.2.4p5-a (1)
 May  3 23:31:56 vpn-gw ntpd[716]: getaddrinfo: "reggae.eik.bme.hu" invalid host address, ignored
 May  3 23:31:56 vpn-gw ntpd[716]: getaddrinfo: "swing.eik.bme.hu" invalid host address, ignored
 May  3 23:31:56 vpn-gw ntpd[716]: getaddrinfo: "jazz.eik.bme.hu" invalid host address, ignored
 May  3 23:31:57 vpn-gw kernel: re0: link state changed to UP
 
 It seems that the problem is the lack of network connectivity, hence the
 lack of a working resolver (I use recursive DNS servers running on other
 machines) at ntpd startup. However, ntpq returns the correct IP
 addresses (maybe it resolves them at the time I run ntpq, I don't know).
 
 [goya at vpn-gw /usr/share/doc/ntp]$ ntpq -p
      remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset jitter
 ==============================================================================
  reggae.eik.bme. .INIT.          16 u    -  512    0    0.000    0.000 0.000
  swing.eik.bme.h .INIT.          16 u    -  512    0    0.000    0.000 0.000
  jazz.eik.bme.hu .INIT.          16 u    -  512    0    0.000    0.000 0.000
 [goya at vpn-gw /usr/share/doc/ntp]$ ntpq -np
      remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset jitter
 ==============================================================================
  152.66.116.122  .INIT.          16 u    -  512    0    0.000    0.000 0.000
  152.66.116.124  .INIT.          16 u    -  512    0    0.000    0.000 0.000
  152.66.116.120  .INIT.          16 u    -  512    0    0.000    0.000 0.000
 [goya at vpn-gw /usr/share/doc/ntp]$
 
 Running '/etc/rc.d/ntpd restart' later resolves the problem.
 
 In the freebsd-stable@ thread
 http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2011-October/064349.html
 /etc/rc.d/netwait was suggested as a workaround.
 
 I found with Google that OpenSUSE uses a much better (IMHO the correct)
 approach: They have the 'dynamic' keyword for servers defined in
 ntp.conf, causing ntpd to try to resolve the server's domain name later
 also, not only at ntpd startup.
 http://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/html/openSUSE/opensuse-reference/cha.netz.xntp.html#sec.netz.xntp.dynamic
 (Don't know whether it's a newer ntpd, or their patched version, or a
 completly different NTP software.)
 
 Regards,
 András