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# System prepended metadata

title: 20200722 Sohan NTP Chrony Problem Statement

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# 20200722 Sohan NTP Chrony Problem Statement

- dhclient has integrations with chrony that allow it to propagate settings from DHCP
- The NM internal dhcp client does not (currently)
    - I believe https://github.com/coreos/fedora-coreos-config/pull/412/ addresses this gap
        - obsoleted by an upstream chrony change that will land eventually
            - https://listengine.tuxfamily.org/chrony.tuxfamily.org/chrony-dev/2020/05/msg00022.html
        - in FCOS we can open a PR to see if the chrony maintainer will pull in the upstream patch
        - in RHCOS we might be able to get the chrony maintainer to include it as well, but will probably take some time
        
- Tests:
    - Need a test to verify that chrony settings from DHCP get applied
        - we're not shipping dhclient, so if they get applied they're using the NM dispatcher
    - Need a test to verify DHCP settings don't overwrite cloud settings (like aws/gcp/azure)
        
Steps to success:

1. manually test to verify the problem
    - i.e. DHCP NTP settings don't make it into chrony config
    - if you want a positive test you could add dhclient back and make NM use it and verify the test passes
2. figure out how to automate the testing
    - robert was trying to get the "dummy interface" method that debian uses working
        - some notes in https://gist.github.com/rfairley/0a126d583636ab7d14113cb60397ab86
3. Test with #412 and makes sure it fixes the problem
4. Get #412 merged in FCOS
    - verify the fix in FCOS and RHCOS
    - let at least one release of FCOS ship with the fix
5. Ask Chrony maintianer in Fedora if they would pull in the patch from upstream
    - if yes, then we move the code from #412 into a RHCOS specific location
6. Ask Chrony maintainer in RHEL if they would pull in the patch from upstream