Comment 13 for bug 90267

That comment is a good argument for leaving 'exit 0' in /etc/network/if-up/ntp when the move is made to ntp 4.2.4. I have already been playing with ntp 4.2.4 and seen the interface scanning in action. I think this is a solution for a different problem not the problem I am having.

What you said covers having a properly running ntp then having an interface change. My problem is ntp not starting up properly.

Not part of this bug but ntp 4.2.4 has it's own problems starting before the network is up when the computer is booting.

1. Starts before eth0 is up. Will refuse to add servers even by ip because there is no network to the address.
2. Can end up starting at the same time as ntpdate. If ntpdate gets port 123 first then ntp will fail to bind to port 123 and exit.
3. Have seen ntp start with eth0 up just in time so some servers can get added by ip. Not all servers listed by ip get added.
4. Still can not resolve any fqdn.

The computer that I have been pasting the log from has an ip of 172.16.31.3. The ip does not change. The computer gets it's ip via dhcp but is effectively a static ip as the ip is mapped to the mac address. My stratum 1 is 172.16.31.201.

ntp 4.2.2p4
When run before eth0 is up ntp can not bind to eth0. The server 172.16.31.201 can be added by ip but not by fqdn. 172.16.31.3 can send packets to 172.16.31.201 but because ntp is not bound to eth0 any replies will be ignored.

ntp 4.2.4
When run before eth0 is up ntp can not bind to eth0. Ntp refuses to add server 172.16.31.201 because eth0:172.16.31.3 is not up yet. Says "Cannot find existing interface for address 172.16.31.201". This version of ntp seems to pick up eth0 when it does it's scan ok but this does not do much good because no servers are defined.

If I restart ntp after the machines have booted then ntp will work properly everytime. Either version.