Comment 56 for bug 114505

cwsupport, this should be a great help to getting this fixed (has been known a LONG time--should have been fixed in Gutsy and Hardy). However, there is one part of your logic I do not understand:

>After all - ntpdate should only be used automatically if ntp as a service has been started.

I think I disagree. ntpdate is not dependent on ntpd running...it is a stand alone function. So, I don't understand why you are saying to run ntpdate only if ntpd is running?????

Indeed, ntpdate should be run before ntp...the sequence should be...

internet connectivity fully up--interface with IP address assigned =and= DNS available
ntpdate, then test for success (probably should retry on failures)
if ntpdate successful,
hwclock --systohc (to ensure if you are starting on a machine with a very wrong hw clock, it is made 'nearly right')
ntpd started

The ntpdate/hwclock part is to prevent a case evolving where ntp is attempted to start during boot on a machine where the hw clock is more than 1000 sec wrong and sysclock is set to the hw clock. If the boot sequence allows that to happen, ntp will fail and there is no direct indication that has happened--only syslog entries. The system clock and hw clock remain wrong because system has been set to the hw clock. This situation will exist if
hw clock is very wrong
ntpdate fails or is not run.