ifup scripts (ntpdate) and logging oddities

[Rolf Bode-Meyer]

My desire to figure out if ntpdate is run at boottime (feisty) led to
more and more questions and oddities. Maybe at least one of you can
give me some hints.

What I'm talking about is the script /etc/network/if-up.d/ntpdate
called by /etc/rcS.d/S40networking.

By configuring one of my servers as ntp server and running tcpdump
there, I finally got "yes" as the answer to above question.
But my main question now is, why syslog doesn't contain evidence of
that--it does if the script is ntpdate is run manually (as
"ntpdate-debian -s", above ntpdate script or even as "if-up -a").

That's part one.

Part two came up while trying to get some output while booting. I added
  . /lib/lsb/init-functions
  log_daemon_msg "Running ntpdate 1"
  echo "Running ntpdate 1, METHOD=$METHOD"
at beginning of the ntpdate script and
  log_daemon_msg "Running ntpdate 2"
  echo "Running ntpdate 2, METHOD=$METHOD"
right before the actual call to ntpdate-debian.

When booting up, I get following output
  Running ntpdate 1
  Running ntpdate 1, METHOD=localhost
right after
  Starting basic networking...
from S08loopback and
  Running ntpdate 1
after
  Loading hardware drivers
from S10udev.

Nothing more regarding ntpdate, not on the screen, not in syslog or
any other logfile I can think of. Even the first echo line doesn't
produce anything upon second call though there's no condition before
it.

What's going on here? What I'm getting wrong? I tested booting with
and without "quiet splash"

BTW, in Debian Etch syslog shows ntpdate called at boottime.

Bye,
Rolf