[Xymon] Patch: ntpdate option -p deprecated

[Roland Rosenfeld]

Hi Brian!

On Mon, 12 Feb 2024, Brian Scott wrote:

> The -p 1 option is still desirable for standard ntpd. The default is
> to do 4 probes which is overkill for xymon.

You are right, but I'm not sure, whether there are still current
systems using the original ntpd.

> I have just checked a fresh install of ntpsec from source and can't see
> ntpdate being installed. Found this on the ntpsec site under Security
> Improvements:
> 
>  * The deprecated and vulnerability-prone ntpdate program has been
>    replaced with a shell wrapper around ntpdig. Its -e and -p options
>    are not implemented. It is no longer documented, but can be found in
>    the attic/ directory of the source distribution.
> 
> I notice that in the script the behaviour when it finds the -p option is to
> simply warn and ignore it:
> 
> p) echo "ntpdate: -p is no longer supported." >&2;;
> 
> So it's just a neatness thing. The script is undocumented (debian may have
> pinched their man page from standard ntp) and unlikely to ever be updated.
> 
> Not sure where this leaves us. I know others had similar problems when
> distros moved to chrony for ntp. Maybe we need a more generalised approach
> to different ntp implementations going forward.

Maybe the best way for ntpsec users is to replace the ntpdate call
with a final ntpdig call (which saves one shell script call).
As far as I can see "ntpdate -u -q foo" with ntpsec-ntpdate wrapper
simply calls "ntpdig -t 1 foo", so why not directly use this?

The attached rewritten patch implements this.

Greetings
Roland
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