Bug#956436: systemd-timesyncd will remove virtualbox-guest-utils

Balint Reczey balint.reczey at canonical.com
Sun Apr 12 23:57:10 BST 2020


Hi Michael,

On Sun, Apr 12, 2020 at 7:58 PM Michael Biebl <biebl at debian.org> wrote:
>
> Am 12.04.20 um 19:40 schrieb Balint Reczey:
> > Hi Michael,
> >
> > On Sat, Apr 11, 2020 at 9:53 PM Michael Biebl <biebl at debian.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> Am 11.04.20 um 10:02 schrieb luca:
> >>> Package: systemd-timesyncd
> >>> Version: 245.4-3
> >>> Severity: normal
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> # apt-get -V dist-upgrade
> >>> Reading package lists... Done
> >>> Building dependency tree
> >>> Reading state information... Done
> >>> Calculating upgrade... Done
> >>> The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
> >>>    libnotify-bin (0.7.9-1)
> >>>    libqpdf26 (9.1.1-1)
> >>> Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
> >>> The following packages will be REMOVED:
> >>>    virtualbox-guest-utils (6.1.4-dfsg-4)
> >>>    virtualbox-guest-x11 (6.1.4-dfsg-4)
> >>
> >> Balint, I guess we should drop
> >> Conflicts: virtualbox-guest-utils,
> >>            virtualbox-guest-utils-hwe
> >> ?
> >
> > Ah, yes, sorry, I did think about that, but forgot to propose the
> > solution in the MR.
> >
> > IMO systemd-timesyncd should be the default time-daemon but also the
> > least preferred option to install, when some other installed package
> > can sync the time.
> >
> > I think the cleanest solution would be virtualbox source building a
> > binary package that Conflicts/Provides/Replaces: time-daemon and sets
> > up time synchronisation with the host (
> > https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#changetimesync )
>
> Nod, I think that package actually is virtualbox-guest-utils?

Virtualbox-guest-utils ships other utils which could be useful even if
time synchronization should be done by a proper time-daemon, so a new
binary package could make sense, but virtualbox-guest-utils can indeed
just that package as well.

>
> > If this solution is not viable, then I think the second best option is
> > considering virtualbox-guest-utils as a time-daemon alternative:
> >
> > AFAIK when virtualbox-guest-utils* is installed the guest's clock can
> > be considered to be synchronised to the host and hopefully
> > transitively to a reasonably good source, so I propose changing
> > systemd instead to depend on systemd-timesyncd | time-daemon |
> > virtualbox-guest-utils | virtualbox-guest-utils-hwe.  This solution
> > has the disadvantage of not being able to install systemd-timesyncd
> > when virtualbox-guest-utils is present, but should not sync time with
> > the host. IMO this is not a huge problem, since other time-daemon-s
> > can still be installed such as chrony, so the guest can still have
> > accurate time, just not with systemd-timesyncd.
>
> I would prefer not to add virtualbox-guest-utils* as an alternative
> Depends.
>
> > Cheers,
> > Balint
> >
> > PS: virtualbox-guest-utils is in contrib, but per #681419 it can still
> > be used as an alternate dependency.
>
> I guess I'll drop the conflicts and clone/reassign this bug report to
> virtualbox and leave it up to them to decide if it should be possible to
> install an NTP client alongside virtualbox-guest-utils* or not (and if
> the latter, to add a C/R/P: time-daemon)

Thanks, that's fair.

Cheers,
Balint

-- 
Balint Reczey
Ubuntu & Debian Developer



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