ntpdate-like functionality in ntpd

[Denys Vlasenko]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 8:38 AM, Guillermo Rodriguez Garcia
<guille.rodriguez at gmail.com> wrote:
> I ended up using rdate on this particular case but I think it would be
> nice if ntpd could be used as described.
>
> I don't have enough knowledge about the protocol to know what are the
> implications of not waiting for the burst mode to end for option -q
> (as per Miroslav's patch). Can anyone shed some light?

Time will be set after 2 reply packets from one peer.
Which normally would take 2-3 seconds.

If network is down or NTP server is not replying at all,
"ntpd -q" can still wait indefinitely. I guess the same is true
for ntpdate.

If you plan for your machines to not hang at boot time
in such a case, you need to think (and test) booting
with network down.