[Xymon] Terabithia or compile

Fri Jun 19 09:15:55 CEST 2020

When we went for CentOS 8, we simply took the CentOS 7 source RPMs  for ntp and rebuilt them for CentOS 8. 

There are good reasons why you would want to choose NTP over Chrony in certain corner cases.

Mark

From: Xymon <xymon-bounces at xymon.com> On Behalf Of David Boyer
Sent: 19 June 2020 04:47
To: Jeremy Laidman <jeremy at laidman.org>
Cc: xymon at xymon.com
Subject: Re: [Xymon] Terabithia or compile

Looks like ntpdate and options are defined in ~/lib/environ.c  and ref. in the ~/xymonet/xymonnet.c and ~/xymond/rrd/do_net.c code.    Looks like something that needs to be updated, as I'm running a dev xymon server on CentOS 8

and the ntp rpm's are not part of the distro anymore.

Dave

On Thu, Jun 18, 2020 at 11:13 PM Jeremy Laidman <jeremy at laidman.org <mailto:jeremy at laidman.org> > wrote:

I think there's an historical reason for the ntp package being required.

The xymonnet binary uses ntpdate (via NTPDATE defined in xymonserver.cfg) to be able to monitor the "ntp" service. Specifically it execs "ntpdate -u -q -p 1 <host IP>". The code in do_net.c is written around the output of ntpdate, so chronyc couldn't be used as an alternative without some serious munging of the output. So for a base Xymon server deployment, ntpdate is generally required. [Actually, Xymon can use sntp instead of ntpdate, but this isn't actually relevant to the current situation.]

I seem to recall, on earlier (prior to v6) versions of RHEL, that the ntpdate binary used to be part of the ntp (or xntp or xntpd) package. This is probably where the dependency on "ntp" came from.

Installing (the package) ntp also brings in ntpdate (as a prerequisite), but installing just ntpdate should not install ntp. This seems to be the case for RHELv7 and v6. I'd say the spec file should match %{?rhel} between 6 and 7 and do "Requires: ntpdate".

J

On Fri, 19 Jun 2020 at 10:43, Ralph M <ralphmitchell at gmail.com <mailto:ralphmitchell at gmail.com> > wrote:

I downloaded the source rpm and installed it.  The spec file for building the RPMs contains this:

     %if %{without trunk}
     %if 0%{?rhel} <= 7
     Requires:       ntp
     %endif

     %endif

So, yeah, it builds into the binary RPMs the requirement to pull in ntp.  I'm not sure if that can be made into a conditional, to require ntp OR chrony.

Ralph Mitchell

On Thu, Jun 18, 2020 at 5:05 PM Root, Paul T via Xymon <xymon at xymon.com <mailto:xymon at xymon.com> > wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Root, Paul T" <Paul.Root at centurylink.com <mailto:Paul.Root at centurylink.com> >
To: "'John Thurston'" <john.thurston at alaska.gov <mailto:john.thurston at alaska.gov> >, "xymon at xymon.com <mailto:xymon at xymon.com> " <xymon at xymon.com <mailto:xymon at xymon.com> >
Cc: 
Bcc: 
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2020 21:04:50 +0000
Subject: RE: [Xymon] Terabithia or compile
That's odd. I did not do that to me.

-----Original Message-----
From: Xymon <xymon-bounces at xymon.com <mailto:xymon-bounces at xymon.com> > On Behalf Of John Thurston
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2020 2:24 PM
To: xymon at xymon.com <mailto:xymon at xymon.com> 
Subject: Re: [Xymon] Terabithia or compile

On 6/17/2020 4:38 PM, John Horne wrote:
> I used to build from source, but for our CentOS 7 and 8 servers I have been
> using the Terabithia RPMs with no problems. The downside is that, like Malcolm
> Hunter mentioned, I have subsequently applied some local patches - sent to the
> list - so that meant rebuilding the RPMs.

I'm now looking at the Terabithia package for the first time in years.
My first reaction is, wth?

Installing the xymon package on my server has disabled chronyd and
installed (but not started) ntpd. why?! If I hadn't read through the
list of packages it was going to grab, and understand the significance
of this one, I'd be going blindly forward with an un-synchronized system
clock.

Now I wonder how many other of my services it has disabled or replaced.
I feel like I've just walked into a mine field :(

--
Do things because you should, not just because you can.

John Thurston    907-465-8591
John.Thurston at alaska.gov <mailto:John.Thurston at alaska.gov> 
Department of Administration
State of Alaska
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From: "Root, Paul T via Xymon" <xymon at xymon.com <mailto:xymon at xymon.com> >
To: "'John Thurston'" <john.thurston at alaska.gov <mailto:john.thurston at alaska.gov> >, "xymon at xymon.com <mailto:xymon at xymon.com> " <xymon at xymon.com <mailto:xymon at xymon.com> >
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Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2020 21:04:50 +0000
Subject: Re: [Xymon] Terabithia or compile
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