[Bug 1744072] Re: [MIR] Chrony in 18.04

[Paul Gear]

I've added initial support for chrony to the ntp charm:
https://code.launchpad.net/~paulgear/ntp-charm/+git/ntp-
charm/+merge/340780

Very lightly tested at present - nagios check known to be non-working,
other features should work.  It's available as cs:~paulgear/ntp if
anyone would like to test: https://jujucharms.com/u/paulgear/ntp/

** Merge proposal linked:
   https://code.launchpad.net/~paulgear/ntp-charm/+git/ntp-charm/+merge/340780

** Changed in: ntp-charm
     Assignee: (unassigned) => Paul Gear (paulgear)

** Changed in: ntp-charm
       Status: Triaged => In Progress

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1744072

Title:
  [MIR] Chrony in 18.04

Status in NTP Charm:
  In Progress
Status in Ubuntu Server Guide:
  Fix Committed
Status in ceph package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in chrony package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in cloud-init package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in maas package in Ubuntu:
  In Progress

Bug description:
  --- MIR ---

  1. Availability: The package is Ubuntu universe and builds for the
  architectures it is designed to work on.

  2. Rationale:
   2.1 NTP in general is needed quite a lot, but we want to exchange ntpd
       which is the current implementation in main with chrony for 18.04.
   2.2 Security: chrony was considered easier to be maintained easier in
       terms of security and provide a more modern ntp experience as well.
   2.3 Efficiency: Furthermore several cloud people seem to be interested to
       change to chrony in the guests for its lower memoy/cpu footprint
       (efficiency I guess).
  2.4 related to this MIR 6 years ago this is the same but for Fedora.
      See: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/ChronyDefaultNTP
      IIRC some limitations that were present have been eliminated since, so
      it is even better than it was back then.
  2.5 In general one has to realize that in a systemd-timesync world
      ntp/chrony are mostly for the "serving" portion of an ntp service, and
      not so much about the client (unless you the better accuracy vs
      timesyncd is needed).

  3. Security: In fact the request came in by security Team, so I guess
  I call this section done

  3. Quality assurance
   3.1 configuration ease - works after installation
   3.2 no high prio debconf
   3.3 usability (no major issues in Debian nor Ubuntu)
       asked Paul in regard to the ntp charm in comment #5
   3.4 long-term >=high bugs (none in Debian nor Ubuntu)
   3.5 Debian/Ubuntu bugs look reasonable maintained
   3.6 does not deal with hard to support exotic hardware (other than ntpd
       btw). If used this can be done through universe package GPSD (no
       dependency)
   3.7 Test suite runs on build (some skipped if not env applicable)
   3.8 debian/watch exists
   3.9 not depending on obsoleted packages

  4.1 It does not face graphical UI
  4.2 It is unfortunately not internationalized as far as I could see in the source

  5. Dependencies - there is one not in main libtomcrypt
     We don't want it in main either, instead we want to fix bug 1744328 and then use libnss which is in main already.

  6. Not found major Policy or FSH violations that would have to be
  fixed.

  7. Maintenance
    7.1 Upstream - is maintained well (and better than ntpd it seems
         according to some discussisons)
    7.2 Ubuntu - Owning Team would be Ubuntu (in exchange to drop ntp)

  8. Background information:
    Fulfills the same role as ntp, yet according to the security Team would
    be preferred for them.

  --- Affected Packages ---

  I'll add all those as bug tasks.
  Once the MIR has passed the state of uncertainty (e.g. would it be blocked by one of the dependent bug being not doable at all) then please work on these into 18.04. Here a list what is affected in the listed packages:

  Maas - needs to change dependencies and maybe template
  cloud-init - needs to support writing ntp config to chrony instead of ntpd
  ceph-base - change recommends from ntpd to chrony (it only intends to get good time and doesn't care via which dameon that is, so that should be ok to be change)
  ntp charm - switch to chrony for >=18.04
  chrony - MIR itself (discussion here and eventually seeding)

  --- Depending on further Bugs ---
  In my initial evaluation I uncovered (and filed) a set of bugs that I consider requirement to make it fully ready:
  Reminder - tracking state here might be out of sync, I'll only change them to Done once complete and not care about interim status changes.

  DONE - bug 1744662 - add chrony apparmor profile
  DONE - bug 1744328 - make src:libnss libfreebl3 usable by other programs
  COMMITTED - bug 1744664 - use Ubuntu time servers
  COMMITTED - bug 1744072 - d/control: use to nss instead of tomcrypt
  Some more cleanups in Chrony are optional but useful.

  Other Related Bugs

   * https://bugs.launchpad.net/cloud-init/+bug/1731619 (cloud-init)

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