Bug#993947: Time lost, /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf gets replaced with a default one

[Michael Biebl]

Am 08.09.21 um 14:04 schrieb Santiago Garcia Mantinan:
> Package: systemd-timesyncd
> Version: 247.3-6
> Severity: important
> 
> Hi!
> 
> On upgrade from Buster to Bullseye I have seen my machines, without Internet
> ntp access, loose their time sync because of the upgrade.
> 
> On the upgrade to the new packages, the old /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf file
> which specifies the right ntp servers to use, will get replaced with a default
> one which will not work for a setup where Internet ntp access is not available.
> 
> Luckily the old file is left as /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf.dpkg-bak, so a
> mv /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf.dpkg-bak /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf
> and proper reloading will get things back to normal.
> 
> I don't know why this file is being replaced, this happened on all the
> machines that had a modified timesyncd.conf file and the system never asked
> if I wanted to override the setup or leave the old one, no choice was given,
> it was just replaced and that's it.

systemd-timesyncd was split into a separate binary package in bullseye. 
Transferring the ownership of the conffile from systemd to 
systemd-timesyncd is a tricky business as dpkg does not have native 
support for that and so we need to go behind dpkg's back for that.

We do have some custom maintainer scripts code where we try to preserve 
local modifications:
https://salsa.debian.org/systemd-team/systemd/-/blob/debian/master/debian/systemd-timesyncd.postinst

Apparently this does not work properly.

Regards,
Michael

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