recommended time synchronisation for Fedora Server edition

[Peter Boy]

In the log of several of my Fedora servers I just found a "complaint“ about a missing time synchronization.

Obviously there are 3 options:

ntpd
- not installed by default
- documented in the installation guide

chronyd
- not installed by default (I guess, not sure)
- not activated by default
- documented in the installation guide

systemd-timesyncd
- installed by default
- not activated by default
- not documented in the installation guide

In the documentation crony ist recommended for workstations („frequently suspended…“)

For systems „.. normally kept permanently on“ ntpd is recommended.

What want we recommend for Fedora Server?

Isn't it desirable for Server to enable time synchronization by default?

Shouldn't we use systemd-timesyncd, which is installed anyway (and some sources consider ntpd to be somewhat outdated)?

Peter

[Tomasz Torcz]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 12:04:50PM +0100, Peter Boy wrote:
> In the log of several of my Fedora servers I just found a "complaint“ about a missing time synchronization.
>
> Obviously there are 3 options:
>
> ntpd
> not installed by default
> documented in the installation guide
>
> chronyd
> not installed by default (I guess, not sure)
> not activated by default
> documented in the installation guide

I think chronyd IS installed by default.
> systemd-timesyncd
> installed by default
> not activated by default
> not documented in the installation guide
>
> In the documentation crony ist recommended for workstations („frequently suspended…“)
>
> For systems „.. normally kept permanently on“ ntpd is recommended.

Not anymore. We are close to removing ntpd from distribution
  https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]/...
> What want we recommend for Fedora Server?
> Isn't it desirable for Server to enable time synchronization by default?
> Shouldn't we use systemd-timesyncd, which is installed anyway (and some sources consider ntpd to be somewhat outdated)?

timesyncd is very simple, it's not even NTP (SNTP only), doesn't
  implement NTS and so on.

[Carlos Vidal]

I think Chrony is the most flexible (see
https://chrony.tuxfamily.org/comparison.html ).

NTPD was a very nice implementation once upon a time. Thanks to it Chrony
is as good as it is, this is open source evolution :-)

Carlos

On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 12:08 PM Tomasz Torcz  wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 12:04:50PM +0100, Peter Boy wrote:
> > In the log of several of my Fedora servers I just found a "complaint“
>
> about a missing time synchronization.
> > Obviously there are 3 options:
> >
> > ntpd
> > not installed by default
> > documented in the installation guide
> >
> > chronyd
> > not installed by default (I guess, not sure)
> > not activated by default
> > documented in the installation guide
>
> I think chronyd IS installed by default.
> > systemd-timesyncd
> > installed by default
> > not activated by default
> > not documented in the installation guide
> >
> > In the documentation crony ist recommended for workstations („frequently
>
> suspended…“)
> > For systems „.. normally kept permanently on“ ntpd is recommended.
>
> Not anymore. We are close to removing ntpd from distribution
>
> https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]/...
> > What want we recommend for Fedora Server?
> > Isn't it desirable for Server to enable time synchronization by default?
> > Shouldn't we use systemd-timesyncd, which is installed anyway (and some
>
> sources consider ntpd to be somewhat outdated)?
>
> timesyncd is very simple, it's not even NTP (SNTP only), doesn't
>   implement NTS and so on.
>
> --
> Tomasz Torcz                 Morality must always be based on practicality.
> [e-mail]                 — Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
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[Kevin Fenzi]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 05:57:35PM +0100, Carlos Vidal wrote:
> I think Chrony is the most flexible (see
> https://chrony.tuxfamily.org/comparison.html ).
>
> NTPD was a very nice implementation once upon a time. Thanks to it Chrony
> is as good as it is, this is open source evolution :-)

+1 to chrony... if we aren't enabling it, we should be.

kevin

[Chris Murphy]

Fedora has chronyd.service enabled with vendor preset enabled for a
long time. And Fedora Server inherits this from:

https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/fedora-release/blob/master/f/90-default.p...

Also, did a clean install just now to double check it and it's enabled
and running.

--
Chris Murphy

[Lukas Ruzicka]

Yeah, I am also in favour of chronyd.

If I remember well, *chronyd *is also used in RHCSA training, so that
somehow keeps us in sync with RHEL administration and I believe that the
more you can move from Fedora to RHEL and back without unnecessary
obstacles, the better.

On Thu, Dec 31, 2020 at 2:51 AM Chris Murphy 
wrote:
> Fedora has chronyd.service enabled with vendor preset enabled for a
> long time. And Fedora Server inherits this from:
>
> https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/fedora-release/blob/master/f/90-default.p...
>
> Also, did a clean install just now to double check it and it's enabled
> and running.
>
> --
> Chris Murphy
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> server mailing list -- [e-mail]
> To unsubscribe send an email to [e-mail]
> Fedora Code of Conduct:
> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
> List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
> List Archives:
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[Neal Gompa]

On Thu, Dec 31, 2020 at 5:03 AM Lukas Ruzicka  wrote:
> Yeah, I am also in favour of chronyd.
>
> If I remember well, chronyd is also used in RHCSA training, so that somehow keeps us in sync with RHEL administration and I believe that the more you can move from Fedora to RHEL and back without unnecessary obstacles, the better.

I prefer using chronyd for all Fedora variants, it's a very nice time
server daemon, so I think we should keep things as-is.