[Pkg-freeipa-devel] Bug#1072168: freeipa-client: Conflicting conflict with systemd-timesyncd

[Adrian]

Package: freeipa-client
Version: 4.11.1-2
Severity: important
X-Debbugs-Cc: debian at p3lim.net

Dear Maintainer,

As we're upgrading our Ubuntu Server 22.04 machines to 24.04 we
immediately stumbled upon this problem - the freeipa-client package is now
conflicting with systemd-timesyncd, which is installed by default on
Ubuntu Server, and is our NTP client of choice.

We use timesyncd specifically because it properly supports DHCP Option 42,
something chrony does not support, but we also feel like its utility
provides a much better user experience.

We're using freeipa-client without NTP (as in we're using the "-N" flag
upon installation with the ipa-client-install tool). This has worked for
us for years, but as of freeipa-client 4.9.11-1 (or earlier) a conflicts
flag was added to the package.

This does not make sense for several reasons:

- freeipa-client package does not depend on any NTP client package, it
  only _recommends_ chrony.
- ipa-client-install does not require an NTP client to run, and as a
  user you can be explicit about this (set the "-N" flag).
- if the user installs freeipa-client without recommendations they are
  left without an NTP client on their system, even though one is
  provided by the system (e.g. Ubuntu Server comes with
  systemd-timesyncd by default).
- the chrony package has a conflicts field with "time-daemon", which
  systemd-timesyncd is a part of, thus making this conflicts field
  unneccesary in the first place.

Please consider reverting this change.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: trixie/sid
  APT prefers noble-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'noble-updates'), (500, 'noble-security'), (500, 'noble'), (100, 'noble-backports')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 6.8.0-31-generic (SMP w/2 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages freeipa-client depends on:
ii  bind9-dnsutils [dnsutils]    1:9.18.24-0ubuntu5
pn  bind9-utils                  <none>
pn  certmonger                   <none>
ii  curl                         8.5.0-2ubuntu10.1
pn  freeipa-common               <none>
pn  krb5-user                    <none>
ii  libc6                        2.39-0ubuntu8.1
ii  libcom-err2                  1.47.0-2.4~exp1ubuntu4
ii  libcurl4t64                  8.5.0-2ubuntu10.1
pn  libini-config5t64            <none>
ii  libjansson4                  2.14-2build2
ii  libk5crypto3                 1.20.1-6ubuntu2
ii  libkrb5-3                    1.20.1-6ubuntu2
ii  libldap2                     2.6.7+dfsg-1~exp1ubuntu8
pn  libnss-sss                   <none>
pn  libnss3-tools                <none>
pn  libpam-sss                   <none>
ii  libpopt0                     1.19+dfsg-1build1
pn  libsasl2-modules-gssapi-mit  <none>
ii  libssl3t64                   3.0.13-0ubuntu3.1
pn  libsss-sudo                  <none>
pn  oddjob-mkhomedir             <none>
ii  python3                      3.12.3-0ubuntu1
pn  python3-dnspython            <none>
pn  python3-gssapi               <none>
pn  python3-ipaclient            <none>
pn  python3-ldap                 <none>
pn  python3-sss                  <none>
pn  sssd                         <none>

Versions of packages freeipa-client recommends:
pn  chrony        <none>
pn  sssd-passkey  <none>

Versions of packages freeipa-client suggests:
pn  libpam-krb5  <none>